


Saltwater

by mtothedestiel



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Boats and Ships, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Depression, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Kidnapping, Loyalty, M/M, Masturbation, Medicine, Mental Health Issues, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pirates, Platonic Cuddling, Recovery, Romance, Royalty, Sailing, Sexual Tension, Suicidal Thoughts, Swordfighting, Swordplay, Trust, Voyeurism, doctor!quentin, pirate king!eliot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:22:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtothedestiel/pseuds/mtothedestiel
Summary: Eliot Waugh is a pirate king, looking for a doctor to serve on his ship.Quentin Coldwater is a doctor, although he's more of a naturalist than a surgeon. He's about to be offered a new job.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle in squad, we're going marauding. This is a vaguely historical, non-magical pirate AU. There will be adventure, ~romance~, close brushes with certain death, and exquisite fashion. I'm planning three acts and an epilogue in addition to this teaser/prologue. I hope you'll comment and let me know if you're enjoying it so far! Trust me, this adventure hasn't even begun. 
> 
> Also, just a brief warning: they're pirates. Like real pirates who kill people, commit crimes etc. Just so no one is surprised.

“My king, the Blood Queen asks for your attention on the quarter deck.”

“Tell her I’ll be along.”

“Aye, captain.”

Setting aside the ship’s books, the High King of the Western Seas rises from his desk, stretching his long arms and running his hands through his wild dark hair. He slips his brocade coat over his open silk shirt and secures his cutlass at his waist. A pistol in his belt completes the ensemble.

The wind pulls its fingers through his hair as Eliot Waugh emerges into the daylight and climbs up the steps from his captain’s quarters onto the main deck. He breathes in the salt air and nods to the men who offer him their deference as he passes. The weather is mild, finally through the squalls of spring but not yet in the unforgiving heat of summer.

The perfect day for a little marauding.

Eliot savors the warmth of the sun on his back as he makes for the quarter deck where Margo is waiting, looking beautiful and deadly in her steel and silks, as always.

“Captain.”

“Bambi.”

Eliot kisses Margo’s hand and accepts the glass from Todd. Stepping up to the banister, he peers through the lens to see what new prey awaits their cannon fire.

It’s a ship of middling size, flying the Crown’s colors. Limping already, if Eliot isn’t mistaken. Perhaps they took damage in the recent storms.  

 _Hm, that’s promising_.

“What say you, my queen?” Eliot asks, collapsing the spyglass, “Third time’s the charm?”  

“I say you’re on a fool’s errand,” Margo replies, pulling twin blades from the sheaths at her waist, “But they look rich, and my Sorrows have been dry too long.”

Eliot grins at the innocent flutter of white sails in the distance, a thrill rising in his blood.

“Well, we can’t have that now, can we?”

 

~

 

Quentin Coldwater has barely rolled out of his dim, narrow berth and begun to dress himself that morning when a clear whistle breaks through the air followed by an eruption of shouting from up on deck. The pounding of urgent feet sound above his head as Quentin finishes the knot in his cravat and pulls on his navy coat. He goes to tie back his loose hair into some semblance of order but he’s lost the bit of leather cord he keeps for that purpose. Again.

He spares a thought for his physician’s kit tucked under his berth, but leaves it behind. It’s not as though he’s been trusted to use it on this voyage anyway. Tugging on his boots and shoving his hair back from his eyes as best he can Quentin makes for the main deck, emerging into the early morning light to the cacophony of shouted orders and sailors in panic.  

“What’s happening?” he tries to ask, but the formerly well ordered crew of the HMS _Ellsworth_ is in chaos, running back and forth across deck with weapons clutched in shaking grips. An officer shoves by him, his face milk white, declaring with the grim air of a condemned man:

“It’s the _Whitespire_.”

“The _White_ —the pirate’s ship? From the songs?”

But the officer is already gone, leaving Quentin with more questions than answers. He reaches the stern to see with his own eyes and sure enough, a ship approaches. Quickly. Quicker than the _Ellsworth_ will be able to run, that much is certain. Already there are only a few ship lengths between them and the distance is shrinking with every second.  

The wind snaps, unfurling the flag that hangs from the _Whitespire’s_ mainmast. Quentin’s breath catches as the sun glints off the gold crown embroidered on the violet field over two crossed blades.  

The mark of the pirate High King.  

“Good god, this is actually _happening_.”

Frozen to the spot, Quentin nearly misses the first flash of cannon fire. The _boom_ reaches his ears and he stumbles back, calling out “hit the deck!” just before the rail he was leaning on explodes in a concussive burst of sound and wood shrapnel.   

The blast knocks Quentin from his feet and his head knocks hard against the wooden deck as he falls to the ground. Sound goes out, as though he’s been plunged underwater, more cannon fire only a distant base note amid the ringing in his ears. His vision swimming, Quentin touches his temple where he feels wetness and his hand pulls away scarlet. He tries to sit up and the world spins, the horizon tilting on its axis until Quentin falls back to the wooden boards with a pained gust of breath.  

He isn’t sure how long he lays there, his vision slowly dimming, but he last thing he hears is a woman’s unearthly battle cry. It pierces the fog between his ears like a sharp blade.

“ _In the name of the High King! Long may he reign!_ ”  

The answering roar echoes across the deck as Quentin slips into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I: The Pirates' Doctor  
> Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so I lied a little about posting in three acts. There are three acts tho! I'll just be posting them in parts. Just to give a hint of fun things to come, act I is currently about 22k and still going. So please enjoy part one! (Also don't @ me on the medical stuff I am not a medical professional or a historical expert on the subject) Additionally, please note the tags, which will be updated with each chapter. Q in this 'verse still very much deals with depression, and you can expect to see canon typical (NOT SEASON FOUR) mental health issues addressed in this fic. Much love <333

Quentin has decided that he hates boats.

Scratch that, he hates the entire god-cursed _ocean._

 _I could have taken the land route_ , he thinks morosely as he’s forced to his knees at pistol point, _what’s nine months through a mountain range compared to six weeks of storms, seasickness, and a likely death by the sword?_

“We found him coming to at the stern. Fits the description alright.”

Quentin is startled out of his maudlin thoughts by the appearance of a blade at his throat. It belongs to another pirate, one who seems to be slightly more in charge than the two ruffians who had dragged him here to the main deck.

“Your name’s Coldwater?”

Quentin nods, the sun sharp in his eyes and a deep throb kicking up at the back of his head.  

“These wretches say you’re a doctor.”

Quentin passes his eye over the bent heads of the bruised and bloodied crewmen. None will meet his eye, having sold him out for a slim chance at saving their own skin.

Assholes.

The blade taps him under the chin. None too gently.

“Speak, man, or I’ll cut the truth out of you.”

“I—yes,” Quentin stammers, “But I’m not the ship’s surgeon—”

The pirate pulls his blade away with a nod, leaving Quentin with the sting and burn of scraped skin. Quentin fits his hand to his blessedly uncut throat as the pirate calls to one of his compatriots:

“Tell the High King. We found one.”

Without any better options Quentin waits for the supposed king to finish up his murdering or plundering or whatever, wishing he had chosen any trade in the world besides his own. A pig farmer, maybe, or a ditch digger. Good honest work that doesn’t get one singled out by pirates.

Quentin has to laugh. He could change his vocation a thousand times. He would still be cursed.

His theory is confirmed when he receives a sharp cuff to the back of the head, right where he’d hit it on the deck earlier.

“Wipe that smirk off your face. You look touched.”

Quentin hisses through his teeth, head throbbing anew.

“Or what,” he bites out, eyes squeezed shut, “You’ll hold me hostage at swordpoint?”

“You insolent—”

Quentin flinches back, sure of another strike, but low, melodic voice intervenes.

“Thank you, Matthews, for that sparkling bit of intimidation, but I think I can take it from here.”

Neck still bent, Quentin opens his eyes to the sight of a pair of leather boots, finely made and stained with salt. From the black leather stem long legs sheathed in brocade so rich they could only belong to one man on board.

The High King.

The pirate, Matthews, is suddenly all manners, stepping back with a bowed head and a deferent “my king,” leaving Quentin kneeling before the most notorious pirate in the Western realms.  

The first thing Quentin’s eyes are drawn to are his hands. They’re expressive, long elegant fingers dripping with silver rings. One rests on his sword pommel and one—

—one reaches out and tilts Quentin’s head up by his chin.

“Well, look at you.”

Quentin slowly traces his gaze up a sleeve of violet damask, threaded with silver and gold and flecked with blood. He passes by a strong shoulder and is tempted to dwell on a long, pale throat, still slick with the sweat of a battle won and wreathed in all manner of strange beads and pendants, but Quentin would look upon the face of his captor. He casts his eyes up.  

The pirate king looks down on him with a kohl rimmed gaze, cool and intrigued. His brown eyes sit deep above an aquiline nose and a firm jaw with a dimpled chin, all framed by an artfully bedraggled halo of dark wavy hair. He has a silver cuff high in the shell of one ear, Quentin can’t help but notice. It matches his rings.

The High King is handsome. There’s no use in denying it, and he seems to know it well enough himself. It’s plain in the set of his shoulders and the careful effortlessness of his facial hair, which isn’t grown in enough to be called a proper beard but is far too well groomed to be considered mere scruff. It’s plain in the ghost of a grin playing at his lips, as though he’s caught Quentin looking too long and he’s pleased with the attention.

Quentin jerks away from the pirate’s touch a second too late, cheeks hot, which only seems to amuse the High King further.

“So? Is he worth sinking a whole ship and setting the bloody Crown after us again?”

A woman strides across the deck, her heeled boots making a bold clack in contrast to the High King’s near silent step. She wears scarlet silk like armor, gold chains spilling out of her leather vest. Her right eye is covered with a gilded patch and her mouth painted red, the shade a perfect match to the blood dripping from the twin short swords that hang at her belt.  

The High King doesn’t seem perturbed by the woman’s lack of obsequience. He steps aside, welcoming her to examine Quentin with a rakish smile playing at his lips.

“We took the ship for their excellent stock of sherry and gunpowder, Bambi. This is just my little side quest. But yes, I have a good feeling. Look how pretty he is.”

“Let’s not get hung up on aesthetics, c _aptain_. What does he bring to the table?”

“Excellent question.”

The High King then addresses Quentin with the ridiculous platitude of:

“Don’t be afraid.”

Something must show in Quentin’s expression because the High King laughs.

“Well, you should be a little afraid,” he admits, “Or it would mean I haven’t done my job.”

“What do you want with me?” Quentin demands, “I haven’t got any money, and my family name isn’t worth—”

“It’s not about you,” the king says, cutting him off, “I’m interested in the skills you have. They’ve told me you’re a doctor. I’m looking to—hm— _hire_ one.” 

“This ship has a doctor. He’s far more experienced—”

“I don’t need a butcher,” the king interrupts with a dismissive gesture. Quentin’s eyes can’t help but follow the glint of his rings. “That’s all the Crown has to offer. I’m here for what _you_ know, that the sawbones downstairs can’t do for me.”

“I...I have a doctor’s education,” Quentin admits, “but I’m more of a naturalist than a surgeon.”

“That means he’s useless to us,” the woman, Bambi, scoffs, drawing a stiletto already stained with blood, “Eliot, this is a waste of—

“It means I know plant medicine,” Quentin interjects, hands up against the threat of the deadly blade, “How to cure sickness with things that grow in the ground, free for the taking. That work better than expensive medicines you have to buy or steal.”

The High King stills Bambi’s hand.

“Tell us more.”

“I—I—“ Quentin wracks his brain, knowing his very life is on the line. “—I know a way to numb pain before surgery, one that won’t thin the blood like brandy. I c—can keep men from getting sick on long voyages when fresh food isn’t an option.”

The king exchanges a glance with his partner, considering.

“I have men who grow sick under the southern sun,” he says, “more than the regular rashes. Too sick to work, or fight.”

“I can treat it,” Quentin promises, “Prevent it. I have a salve—I use it myself—you can look in my things.”

Again, the king looks to Bambi, who shrugs.

“That’s the best we’ve heard thus far. But is he cut out for the life? Doubtful.”

The look she gives Quentin leaves him feeling like a particularly small ant, but the High King is still curious as he steps closer.

“You’re dressed in half-mourning,” he observes, fingering the black trim on Quentin’s collar, “Why?”

“I…” Why keep secrets with a barely metaphorical pistol to his head? “...I had a fiancée. She died, the winter before last.”  

Quentin drops his gaze to the wooden deck as he brushes up against the rusty blade of Alice’s memory. The shame still burns far worse than the nick under his chin.

“Two years. And still you grieve,” The king muses, “Out of love or duty, I wonder?”

“What business is it of yours?” Quentin snaps before he can catch himself. Bambi’s eyes flash, but fortunately for Quentin the High King only looks amused.

“So duty then. Interesting.”

Then, to his companion: “I want this one, Margo. He’s practically _begging_ to be shanghaied. It’ll be the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to him.”

Bambi—or Margo now?—nods, pursing her blood red lips.

“Sad but true.”  

Quentin is several steps behind in this conversation, that much is obvious, but one word jumps out at him.

“Um, _shanghaied_?”

“Yes, although you could think of it as a rescue, if you’re a ‘glass half full’ type. Or maybe a very mild form of impressment.”

“I—what?”  

“I think maybe I’m not being clear.”

The High King kneels to speak to Quentin eye to eye.

“I am going to sink this ship,” he explains, the way one talks about choosing a new shirt, or tossing out yesterday’s refuse, “I have need of your skill set, and thus you have a choice to make. You can remain here on a sinking ship and cast your lot in with this crew, or you can join mine. Those are your options.”

“How do I know you won’t just kill me anyway?”

“Because you and I are going to make a bargain,” the king says, “Serve as doctor on board the _Whitespire_. Be of use to me for one year, and you’ll have safe passage to any port of your choosing at the end of it. My word as bond, and all that.”

“If I’m...of use,” Quentin repeats, “What if I’m not?”

The High King’s gentle smile turns sharp. He pats Quentin’s cheek with one of his elegant hands. Quentin can feel the smooth, flesh warm metal of his rings against his skin.

“Let’s not start off so pessimistic, hm? You have an easy choice to make: You can almost definitely die now, or you can greatly increase your odds of living by coming with us.”

Quentin meets the High King’s gaze. It’s steady. Warm, even. For some reason Quentin had expected the feared High King to be a little less... _human_ behind the eyes. Piracy was blood and riches and greed and there must be a price to pay for that in one’s soul but the High King’s visage held none of the flat emptiness Quentin had prepared himself to stare down. Whatever else he is—a tyrant, maybe, a murderer, certainly—this man is _alive_ , and it fills Quentin with an ugly jealousy. They both breathe and bleed and speak, yet the High King kneels before him in vibrant color while Quentin has spent the last two years wasting down to shades of gray.   

He’s tired of it, he realizes.

Through three weeks of spring storms Quentin laid nauseous in his miserable little berth, wishing the ship would just capsize already and spare him the bother of living. Now that death is actually an option, Quentin is pleasantly surprised to find he wants to survive. And these people seem to actually want him, unlike the crew of the _Ellsworth_ who treated him like a child one day and a sanitarium patient the next. He’s a man who knows his trade, damn it all. Why not die useful?

If he meets his end on a pirate’s blade in the coming days at least it will be less pathetic than suicide by saltwater.

“I’ll do it.” Quentin pushes the hair out of his eyes, giving a bitter little laugh. “I’ll come with you. Why the fuck not?”   

The High King nods, looking pleased.

“Then we have a deal, Quentin Coldwater. Welcome to the crew of the _Whitespire.”_

Quentin can’t help but think of a particularly elegant stork as the High King unfolds back to his true height.

“On your feet, doctor,” the king commands, “Members of my crew kneel to no man, even if he is their captain.”

Quentin stumbles to his feet, far less gracefully than the High King given his aching knees.

“Todd!”  

At the king’s call one of the pirate crew appears. He’s a grown man but younger than Quentin, and possibly the most clean cut pirate one could possibly image. His boyish features are only made slightly more rugged by a blooming bruise high on his cheekbone and a sluggishly bleeding cut just below his hairline. He offers a half-bow half-salute to the High King.  

“You called, captain?”

“Indeed I did. We seem to have found the _Whitespire_ a doctor,” the High King explains, “Show him to his new surgery, and then stay there. Someone needs to take a look at that brow of yours.”  

“It’s nothing, Majesty, really—”

“I’ll let our new physician decide that.”

“Aye, sir.”  

“I’ll need my things,” Quentin pipes up, “I have a trunk below decks, with my kit and my stored ingredients—”

The High King waves his hand.

“Yes, yes, whatever. Todd will take care of you from here. Right, Todd?”

“Aye, sir!”

It’s a strange mixture of disgust and pity waiting for Quentin in the eyes of the _Ellsworth’s_ crew as Todd leads him below decks to collect his things and then toward one of the gangplanks that connected the hobbled ship to the vessel he would call home for the next year _._ Perhaps they think him weak and craven; perhaps they fear for his immortal soul, selling his services to a king of thieves. Quentin finds he has little care for their opinions.

“We don’t touch lifeboats, doctor,” his guide, Todd, informs him when he turns to look back at the dozen or so indifferent men he’d been trapped in this small hell with, “If that’s something that’s weighing on you.”

“I suppose it should have been,” Quentin replies, shouldering his kit, “Thank you.”

Turning his back on the _Ellsworth_ for good, Quentin takes his first real look at the _Whitespire_.

It is a massive ship, considering how swiftly it came upon them, but as he crosses the gangplank Quentin observes that her lines are sleeker than first meet the eye. It was a graceful predator, then, that took the _Ellsworth_ for a prize.

The deck of the _Whitespire_ is crawling with men, as is the rigging leading up to her billowing white sails. Quentin must count three score at least, of all age shape and size, and that’s besides the much smaller number that had boarded the _Ellsworth_ with their king. They eye him with a range of menacing scorn to bored skepticism as he’s led across the deck towards the stern.

Quentin is deposited along with his small trunk in a surprisingly spacious cabin. It’s relatively private, considering it will double as his surgery, with an actual shallow bed built into one wall. Unlike his dark and cramped berth on the _Ellsworth_ these quarters even have windows. The glass in small rectangular openings is thick and bubbled but it lets in a weak stream of natural light nonetheless. It allows Quentin to look around and see what supplies might have remained from his predecessors. For his personal effects there seemed to be a small table with a drawer affixed to one wall, along with a clouded mirror and a chipped basin. Taking more space in the center of the room was a surgeon’s gurney, with a trough and hand pump to bring in water and a bag of sand for the floor should it become slick with blood or other human fluids. There was a larger cabinet nearby with an attached desk top. That would serve well for his studies, should he be given the time for it. Quentin lifts the latch on one of the cabinet doors and is relieved to be met with rows of clean rolled bandages. He pulls out another drawer and finds sutures, needles, and shears.

“I hope this will suit you, doctor.”

Quentin jumps, having quite forgotten Todd is there. He closes the cabinet and instead opens his own kit. There will be time to explore his full inventory later. He is in the service of the High King now, and his first patient is already waiting.

“I can manage, I think,” a Quentin says brushing a fine layer of dust off the berth and indicating Todd should sit, “I’m glad you have some of your own supplies. I certainly don’t have enough of my own for a crew this size.”

Todd shrugs, seating himself comfortably while Quentin experiments with the pump to fill the low trough with water.

“Doctor or no doctor you don’t throw that kind of thing away if it can be saved,” he says, “And the king will see that you have what you need if there’s anything lacking.”

“How very generous of him,” Quentin hums, pulling off his coat and rolling up his sleeves before rinsing his hands, “Now tell me, do I need to see to anything besides your head?”

“No, sir, one of the marines just got me with a mean right hook is all.”

“Alright then, let me take a look at you.”

Quentin has Todd follow the movement of his finger with his eyes to check for injuries to the brain. He’s able to do that as well as answer some simple questions to prove himself cogent, though when Quentin asks who rules the realm Todd of course answers “Eliot Waugh” without hesitating.

 _The McAllisters would no doubt bristle at that sentiment,_ Quentin thinks as he dabs the blood from Todd’s brow, but then again if he was looking for loyalty to the Crown he boarded the wrong ship this day.

“This shiner is going to come in nicely,” Quentin informs his patient, checking with his thumb around the pirate’s eye to ensure the socket was intact, “But you’ll live. Let me get you some iodine for that scratch.”

Todd glances up at him, amused. “I appreciate that, doctor, but you might spare some for yourself as well.”  

“For my—”

Todd taps his temple, and Quentin touches his own, forgetting the blood he’d found there earlier. It’s only a tacky smudge against his fingertips now, but Quentin wets a rag in the trough of saltwater to wipe away the worst of it. There’s no real wound to speak of, just a nick above his hairline that must have been caused by a stray splinter.

“Nothing to worry about,” Quentin informs Todd as he sets aside the rag, “These things tend to bleed more than they’re worth, is all. You’ve no doubt noticed yourself.”

“Just looking out. It wouldn’t do us any good to have you faint on us.”  

“I appreciate the sentiment.” Quentin opens his kit, sorting through his various jars and bottles for his iodine. Todd waits patiently, and for the moment Quentin allows himself to consider the young pirate, if not an ally, then at least a non-belligerent source of information.

“So why is he called the High King?” Quentin wonders, setting aside a stoppered bottle of witch hazel and an oil cloth packet of cloves, “There can’t be too formal a hierarchy amongst you.”   

“Formal enough. Lots of pirates call themselves kings,” Todd replies, “But pretenders bow to him or die by his sword. At least in the Western Sea.”

“That’s, um—okay,” Quentin says, then under his breath, “Sorry I asked.”

“And,” Todd continues after a ponderous moment, “I suppose the captain has also cultivated something of a reputation for...insobriety.”  

Quentin can’t help but laugh. The _High_ King.

“Well,” he says, “I suppose you are pirates.”

Todd nods amiably. “That we are. Temperance isn’t really in our nature.”

“So then Margo—“

“The Blood Queen,” Todd supplies helpfully, “Margo the Destroyer, the Oncoming Storm.”

“The queen,” Quentin corrects, pulling the correct tincture from his kit at last,  “She’s the captain’s…lover?”

Todd laughs.

“You know what, I’ll let you suggest that to her,” he replies, “The face she makes before she guts you will be very funny.”

“Aha.” So the High King keeps a deadly queen, but not in his bed. Very mysterious.

 _Or perhaps not_ , Quentin muses, thinking back on how the High King had touched his chin. Called him “pretty.”

Quentin frowns over that as he smears the deep yellow iodine over the cut on Todd’s brow. He isn’t averse to the intentioned touches of a man, and the High King is a handsome example of his sex, but he is now also Quentin’s captor, or to phrase it as delicately as possible, his “employer.”

He thinks to the spatter of blood on the High King’s sleeve, and to the black mourning trim that lines his own. No, he decides, there will be no need for extra complications in what would undoubtedly be the most complicated year of Quentin’s life.

If he lives that long.

On that note, he asks Todd:

“What happened to your last doctor?”

Todd’s expression darkens.

“He met with the High King’s justice,” he replies, short.

The memory of the High King’s touch takes on a fresh chill. Mouth dry, Quentin lets the topic go. He sets aside the iodine with a shaking hand and clears his throat to say: “There you are, then. You’ll be good as new in a few days. Are there other men wounded?”

“A few. I think Avery is worst off. The idiot rolled his ankle swinging off the mainmast.”

“Well, send him down and I can wrap it up. What else?”

“Just a few scrapes and plenty of bruises, that I’ve seen, but there could be more that I haven’t.”

“I’ve got bruise balm to spare. Make sure I see anybody who’s bleeding first, though.”

“Aye, doctor,” Todd promises, “I’ll get them organized for you.”

Quentin’s remaining daylight hours are spent this way, Todd leading down injured sailors one by one in approximate order of injury severity, and Quentin doing his best not to kill anyone. Or let anyone kill him. Fortunately he was a far better student than socialite at university, and his training comes back easily despite his more recent research which had placed a sketchbook in his hands more often than a needle and sutures.

His patients turn out more difficult to navigate than his knowledge of medicine.

The men are...mistrustful, for reasons Quentin can’t really understand. A few of the younger crewman even insist on Todd staying in the room while Quentin applies his bandages and splints and treats one superficial gunshot wound.

“C’mon, Shaughnessy,” Todd coaxes the cabin boy Quentin is trying to pull a bullet out of, “What are you?”

“I’m—I’m the king’s man,” Shaughnessy stammers, watching anxiously as Quentin swabs the wound with his natural anesthesia.

“What falls on those who harm the High King’s men?”  

The boy sighs in relief as the numbing solution takes effect and he replies, “The king’s justice.”

Hearing _that_ really steadies Quentin’s hands as he uses his forceps to delicately pull the lead out of Shaughnessy’s thigh, but he manages, and sends the boy off some minutes later with a neat row of stitches and orders to stay out of the rigging for the next week or so. He can’t seem to scramble out of Quentin’s new quarters fast enough, hobbling back up to the main deck on a makeshift crutch.

“They realize _I’m_ the one here under duress, right?” Quentin can’t help but ask as he washes the blood from his hands in the trough of saltwater, but Todd just ushers in his last patient, who happens to be Quentin’s particular least favorite.

“You’ll be dead in a week,” Matthews grumbles at him while Quentin examines a contusion over his ribs, “The High King doesn’t suffer fools.”

“And yet he deigns to keep _you_ around,” Quentin snaps, tired after a long day of being _abducted_ and then forced to recall all of his medical knowledge practically on the spot to treat nearly a dozen men. From his watchful corner Todd can’t contain a snort of laughter while Matthew’s face contorts in comic rage.  

“ _You—_ “

Whatever likely violent response Matthews had in mind is interrupted by the arrival of the queen.

“Gentlemen, are we playing nice?”

She glitters in the drab light of Quentin’s office, having changed from her bloody marauding leathers into a new set of trousers and a long, sapphire blue tunic that clings tightly to her waist then flows to the ground like elegant skirts. The queen is as beautiful as a jewel and her gaze is as sharp as one when she raises an eyebrow at Matthews. Quentin didn’t realize that Matthews’ meaty grip was an inch from his throat until the sailor withdraws it under the eye of Queen Margo.

“Of course, my queen.”

Said queen purses her blood red lips. Quentin hopes to never be the direct object of that expression.

“That’s what I thought,” she replies, voice cool as ice before looking to Quentin, “When you’re finished with Matthews—”

“I’ve been seen to, my lady.”

Matthews rises from the berth and makes his exit, conveniently jarring Quentin’s shoulder on his way out even though it’s plain the affront causes his ribs to twinge. Quentin lets him go. His ribs aren’t broken anyway. If he doesn’t want to stay for the bruise balm Quentin won’t be the one to make him.

The queen, Margo, shrugs as Matthews leaves.

“Perfect, then.”

She sets her attention on Quentin.  

“The king is in need of your services, and would prefer to be seen to in his cabin.”

Quentin rinses his hands again and dries them on a clean rag.  

“The king? I didn’t realize he’d been injured.”  

“Of course you didn’t. He’s being a twat about it, as usual,” she declares, rolling her eyes, “And dealing with his martyr complex is officially your job. Patch him up.”

“Uh, yes….ma’am?”

The queen shakes her head, disgusted.

“You’re hopeless,” she sighs, “And not that cute. Get going.”

Quentin’s journey is a short one, only up to the deck and immediately back down to the cabin beside his own. _So we can keep an eye on you,_ the Blood Queen had explained ominously.

The captain of the _Whitespire_ is...slightly irritated to find Quentin darkening his doorway.

“I told Margo I was _fine.”_

Quentin steps into the captain’s quarters to find the High King sprawled on a velvet chaise before an ornate wooden table covered in all manner of maps, charts and navigational tools. The king himself is draped in a silk robe, hanging open over his bare chest and a loose pair of canvas trousers. Despite his relaxed posture the High King looks a bit peaked, his lips red from biting and a clammy sweat clinging to his brow. The reason soon makes itself evident. The sleek robe, deep ochre in color, has been left off the king’s left shoulder in order to make room for the wadding of wet cloth he holds tightly over his collarbone. A makeshift bandage, Quentin realizes.

“I don’t have to be a doctor to see you’re obviously not ‘fine’,” Quentin says, “Is that...wine?”

“Saltwater, doctor,” the High King says, pulling the sopping red rag away from his shoulder begrudgingly, “It’s just been bleeding...a bit.”  

“A bit,” Quentin repeats, stepping into the cabin proper. The room seems an exercise in aesthetic excess, a pirate king’s lair pulled right out of a novel. The floor is laid with rich rugs, and brilliant lengths of exotic fabric hang from the walls like tapestries. A prized cabinet stands to the right containing a multitude of crystal bottles which Quentin realizes are all liquor, more varieties than he could possible hope to name. Set into the wall to the left Quentin can make out what must have be the High King’s bed, but which most resembles a nest of satin and velvet. A curtain of wooden beads hangs across of the opening, skimming back and forth across the floor as the ship rocks with the rhythm of the waves outside.

Looking away from the private space, Quentin sets his kit on the table and with the king’s permission kneels to take a closer look at his injury. It’s a wicked looking cut that slices across the skin between the High King’s collarbone and shoulder, but it doesn’t look particularly deep, despite how much it’s bled.

“Can you bend your arm,” Quentin asks just in case, demonstrating himself, “Move your shoulder normally, etc.?”

“Aye.”

The king rolls his shoulder, wincing, but without difficulty. No significant damage to the muscles then, or bones.  

“How did this happen?”  

“I couldn’t tell you,” the High King replies, leaning forward slightly to allow Quentin to touch his chest and shoulder. Quentin notes the scent of cloves and smoke muddled by coppery blood as he carefully presses his thumbs to the edges of the king’s torn skin.

“I didn’t know I’d been hit until I took my coat off,” he continues, “Something so minor...when a man’s blood is up in the heat of a fight, you might not even notice the sting.”  

“I wouldn’t know,” Quentin says, “But that would explain why you’ve bled so much. Elevated heart rate. I imagine it slowed once you settled down.”

“Indeed.”

Quentin eyes a heavily engraved goblet sitting on the table, still half full of deep red wine. “I don’t imagine drinking aided in slowing the bleeding either."

The High King looks confused for a moment, then laughs.

“Trust me, Mr. Coldwater, a glass of wine after dinner is _not_ drinking. Not by a sailor’s standards and certainly not by mine.”

Quentin hums. “As you say,” he says, “Regardless, why didn’t you get this seen to earlier?”

“There might have been men with worse who needed your efforts,” the High King replies, “I knew it would keep.”

“I feel your men might have disagreed with that logic, if you had bled out.”

“Yes, well, they aren’t captain.”

Quentin examines the wound, but admits, “You’re right this time. It isn’t serious, though I’d imagine it’s quite painful.”

The High King merely hums, despite the pale cast to his brow.

“Ruined my favorite silk shirt, anyways,” he mutters.

“Maybe if you didn’t want it ruined you shouldn’t have worn your best into a battle,” Quentin suggests mildly.

The High King merely eyes Quentin’s own modest dress with barely disguised disdain. He pulls his robe closer over his free shoulder and tilts his chin just so as he replies, arch:

“Wear the suit you’d want them to hang you in, Mr. Coldwater.”

Bearing in mind that this man could kill him on a whim, Quentin refrains from rolling his eyes, but it’s a near thing.

“I’ll take that under advisement. Speaking of suits, did you get this cut through your jacket?”  

“There’s no rip in the brocade that I could see, why?”

“There’s something irritating the wound, I thought it might be fibers from your coat,” Quentin explains, probing the cut as delicately as he can, “But—oh, hang on, that explains it—“

“What—ow, _fuck—“_

Quentin holds up the wicked looking splinter he just tugged from the High King’s shoulder.

“There’s the mystery solved,” he declares, “It must have been a bit of shrapnel from the cannon fire.”  

“Christ, warn a man before you go pulling shards of wood out of his chest next time, won’t you?”

“That’s why you should have these things looked at,” Quentin says, “This could have festered.”

The High King scowls.

“You know, it’s considered the height of disrespect to scold a king.”  

Quentin makes a significant effort to keep his hand from shaking.

“It’s the purview of a doctor to scold neglectful patients,” he says, voice steady, “If I’m to be useful to you then you’ll have to let me do my job.”

The High King raises his eyebrows, but tips his chin eventually in what passes for a nod. Quentin takes the concession for what it is and continues with his work.

“It’s going to bleed again,” he says, putting aside the bloody splinter, “But it doesn’t need a stitch, only pressure. Keep the wound above your heart.”  

“Not too difficult a task,” the king hums, wincing as he rotates his shoulder gingerly, “Though I imagine that means I’ll be sleeping upright.”

“It would be best,” Quentin agrees, “In the meantime I’ll irrigate it which will help with the inflammation.”

“Irrigate,” the High King repeats.

“Rinse it out,” Quentin explains, standing to look through his kit, “To remove any remaining debris. Then it can heal freely in the open air.”

Quentin pulls a larger bottle from his bag. The High King’s expression immediately shutters, and he holds out his hand imperiously.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Quentin unstoppers the bottle and hands it over without objection. The High King wafts it under his nose briefly before handing it back, seemingly satisfied.

“If you’re planning to poison me, you’ve at least been subtle about it.”

“It’s purified water,” Quentin says, confused, “There’s a drop of iodine in it, is all.”  

The High King shrugs, entirely unapologetic about his suspicion.  

“Honestly,” Quentin mutters, pulling another rag from his kit to catch the extra liquid, “You’re as bad as the men.”   

That seems to catch the king’s attention.

“The crew gave you difficulties?”

“Hold this,” Quentin requests, showing the High King where to press the cloth, then continues, “And no, not as such, but considering I was brought here practically at swordpoint, the men seemed quite nervous to accept my treatments. I’m concerned there may be a blade in my gut the next time I try to set a broken bone or remove a bullet.”  

The High King shakes his head.

“They wouldn't. It would go against my orders.”

“Very reassuring, but why do they fear me?”

The High King stares at up Quentin, then at the glass apothecary bottle in his hands. His gaze, tracing over the mottled blue glass, goes so cold for a moment that it makes Quentin shiver.

Then he blinks, and it’s as though it never happened. The High King laughs, brief, and brushes off Quentin’s concerns with a stately wave of his left hand.

“Superstition, is all, and a stranger in their midst,” he replies at last, obviously lying, “We _are_ pirates, doctor. I’m sure you’ll forgive us if we don’t put excessive trust in men’s virtue.”

“So I’m to be threatened _and_ mistrusted to do the very work that will keep me alive.”

“We all have our crosses to bear.”

“Hm. This might sting.”

The High King barely flinches as Quentin pours the clean water over the wound, hopefully washing out any remains of the splinter that may be too small to spot by eye. The king holds the cloth obediently, soaking up the leftover solution, all the while his sharp, warm eyes fixed on Quentin in a way Quentin feels he hasn’t been seen in months. Years. Not since he’d last stood in the wake of Alice’s bright _knowing_ gaze—

“You seem perturbed.”

Quentin tips the bottle back up. He steps away, feeling all at once too closely the warmth of the High King’s skin under his palm.

“A lot has happened today.”

Quentin returns his bottle to his satchel. He hears the scrape of gold across the large table as the king retrieves his goblet and sips his wine. All the while, the High King looks and looks and _looks_ at him and Quentin is no longer accustomed to being _seen_ —

—at least on the _Ellsworth_ they had been content to let him waste away in peace—

“What is my place here? Am I your prisoner? Am I part of the crew?” Quentin bursts out, flipping his bag shut forcefully, “What do I even call you?”

When he turns the High King stares him down coolly, a hint of amusement at his lips and his goblet balanced delicately in his right hand.

“On deck, you should address me as ’my king’. ‘Captain’ is also acceptable, if the former is distasteful to you.”

Quentin deflates as quickly as he rose to passion, fiddling with the fastenings of his kit.

“I—right. I suppose I could have assumed as much—”

“In this room, you may call me Eliot.”

Quentin turns to the sight of the High King staring down into his goblet, a pensive slant to his full mouth.

“Oh.”

“We’re both just men, Quentin Coldwater,” the king—Eliot—continues, “You owe me no fealty, so you may speak to me as such, so long as it doesn’t appear insubordinate in front of my crew. Even a pirate ship must operate on a modicum of discipline.”

“I suppose I can understand that,” Quentin acquiesces.  

“Thank you.”

Eliot drains his glass and pulls up the hem of his robe to cover his injured shoulder, the aloof air of the High King sliding neatly back into place.

“If you’ll excuse me, doctor, I need to dress,” he says, rising from the chaise to approach a massive armoire fastened to the far wall, “The men will be celebrating our take and I’ll be expected to appear while the night is still young.”

“I’ll leave you then,” Quentin says, feeling strangely disappointed at the dismissal.

“You’re more than welcome to join us,” Eliot says, thumbing through several richly embroidered coats, “After all, _you_ were the real prize today.”

Eliot’s hand pauses in its activity, as though he’s just realized what he’s said.

“Mr. Coldwater—Quentin—if I may, I think I may have chosen the wrong phrasing—“

“I understand exactly what you meant,” Quentin says, swinging his kit over his shoulder as his eyes burn, “And thank you, _captain_ , for answering my question. I think my place here has been made clear to me.”

Quentin would love to storm out, but he finds his way blocked by the arm of the High King, whose steps are as quick as they are graceful. They stand, face to face, nearly in the doorway. Looking up to meet his gaze Quentin realizes how tall Eliot is. Even barefoot in a dressing gown he looms, regal.

“You are not a prisoner,” Eliot says, brown eyes deep and deadly serious, “That must be understood. You are a free man, Mr. Coldwater, who has made a contract. Your position here is equal and secure.”

“Unless I prove myself unhelpful, in which case you’ll kill me,” Quentin snaps, “If you would excuse me, captain—“

“If you prove a danger to my ship, then yes, I will kill you,” Eliot clarifies, refusing to budge, “If you neglect your duties at the expense of my men, I will kill you. These are the caveats of stepping onboard the _Whitespire,_ and they are true for every member of my crew. You are not the tortured exception to the rule, and I won’t have you trudging about with a martyr’s crown.”

“If I see fit to trudge it will be my prerogative,” Quentin replies, a hot lick of anger in his belly, “Let me pass, _Eliot_.”

“You’ll pass when I grant my permission for you to do so.”

There is not an inch of give in Eliot’s expression.

“We are both men,” Eliot says, “But I am captain of this ship, and I am king in the West. I will do what it takes to protect those I rule, and I won’t be bothered to spare your feelings over it.”

“Fine.” Quentin sags, too exhausted to attempt further argument. “ _May_ I go, captain?”

Eliot moves aside.

“You may. Good evening, doctor.”

Quentin takes his leave, returning to his cabin and finally bolting the door on Eliot Waugh the High King, and the _Whitespire_ , and the bloody threescore pirates that would all be looking to him to tend their bumps and bruises from here on out. He closes the door on the _Ellsworth_ , and his father, who will likely think him dead for a year, and the fact that he may well _be_ dead within a year.

It has been a tremendously long day.

Quentin removes his boots, and his coat, and undoes the belt from his waist. He blows out the flame of the sputtering oil lamp beside his bed and lays down on the clean spare single mattress. Outside, he hears a cheer go up from the main deck.

The High King has joined his men, to celebrate taking Quentin as a _prize_.

Quentin sighs, closing his eyes to this complicated world. Tomorrow would be a new day, and a new chance to...prove himself? Stay alive? Become part of something?

He still isn’t sure. Tonight all he feels is tired. From out on deck, he can hear the muffled tune of a fiddle come to life, followed by a chorus of drunken voices. Alone in his cabin, Quentin can’t make out the words of the pirates’ song.

He has walked into the pages of an adventure novel, with all its perils and pleasures. It has been a day filled with blood and cannon fire, salt and sea foam, violet brocade and shimmering ochre silk. Yet it is as if he can only hear the goings on of the world through his cabin wall.

 _Why_ , Quentin wonders as he falls into an uneasy sleep, _Why do they get to live in sound and color, but not I?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please subscribe to get the latest updates on our pirate babes! Comments are my life and love. Coming up in part 2: Quentin settles in, and another handsome King makes an appearance...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I: the Pirates' Doctor  
> Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, I hope you enjoy! Jsut fyi POV switches between Q and Eliot this chapter. I've been working hard haha but the good news is I already have the next part nearly finished, so I should be able to post again soon! Much love!

After a night of song, drink, and general carousing Eliot wakes up to a dry mouth and Margo’s hair tickling at his nose. They’re sprawled out in his bed, Margo making good use of his chest as a cushion. It must have been quite the night if Margo didn’t bother stumbling the few yards down to her own quarters. Eliot quite enjoys sharing a drunken cuddle with his Bambi but it irritates her so to have any of the men think they’re fucking that she usually insists. Eliot stretches his long arms, wincing when he tugs on the still healing wound in his shoulder as Margo stirs against his chest. He’s still in last night’s shirt and his drawers and Margo...is in one of his shirts as well. That’s all fine then. So long as she didn’t fall asleep in her corset. A night in her stays always leaves his queen stormy in the morning.

“Good morning,” he mumbles, enjoying the brief grace period before what threatens to be a truly vicious hangover sets in, “Did we not make it back to our queenly chambers last night?”

Margo yawns, still groggy. From somewhere in the bedcovers she finds her eyepatch. She settles it back into place with the ease of long practice before reclaiming her place of honor on Eliot’s chest.

“You make a better pillow than what I have in my cabin,” she replies. Eliot laughs, nuzzling into her morning bedhead.

“I’m flattered and offended,” he says, “I seem to recall quite the traipse through the jungle in search of an exotic feather down for those pillows. I believe I died of malaria in the process.”

Margo scoffs, flicking Eliot’s nipple with her sharp nail.

“You didn’t _die_ ,” she says when he yelps, “I would never have let that happen.”

“God forbid Death take me without your permission, Bambi,” Eliot grumbles, rubbing the sting out of his chest, “You’d probably just yank me back from the ether by the hair anyway.”

“From the jungle, the gallows, the gates of Hell itself,” Margo promises, “We die at sea or we live forever, Eliot Waugh.”

Eliot presses a kiss to the top of Margo’s head before relaxing back into his own pillows.

“That’s a bargain I’m happy to strike.”

Speaking on bargains threatens to sour Eliot’s mood as his thoughts drift back to his newest crew member.

 _After all, you were the real prize today_.

That comment, in retrospect, may have been lacking in tact, but _honestly_.

“What’s that face for?”

Eliot blows an errant curl off his forehead. “You can’t even see my face to know there is one.”

Margo reaches up to tap him knowingly on the chin. “I can tell when you’re making a face, Your Majesty. Queen’s intuition.”

Margo rolls onto her front, crossing her arms over Eliot’s chest.

“Let me take a guess,” she says, raising one eyebrow, “You’re thinking of your middlingly handsome pet project who’s going to kill us all with his herbalism nonsense.”

“We needed a change,” Eliot says, pointedly, which Margo sighs her agreement with, “And he’s performed capably so far as a surgeon. He pulled a bullet out of our cabin boy, and a good bit of shrapnel out of me.”

“And yet,” Margo says, drumming her fingers dangerously close to Eliot’s sore shoulder, “The face.”

“I may have misspoke,” Eliot admits.

“The High King doesn't _misspeak_ to a man whose life he spared.”

“By implying that we took him as a prize—“

“Which we _did_ , and he’s lucky to be here, on the greatest ship to ever sail the Western Seas—“

“And I believe he took offense.”

“For god’s sake, men and their _angst—“_

Before Eliot can stop her Margo sits up and pounds her fist on the wall that divides his bedchamber from Quentin’s.

“Grow a pair of tits, Coldwater!” she shouts, “If you wanted to make friends and get your hand held you shouldn’t have boarded a bloody pirate ship!”

“Margo, dear _lord_ —"

There is a mighty thump and scramble from the other side of the wall as Mr. Coldwater presumably falls out of bed after being rudely startled awake. Poor Quentin. Unfortunately Eliot can’t spare more than a moment’s pity for their new doctor, as Margo’s antics have reminded his head exactly how much he had to drink last night. Yo ho, a bottle of rum, and all that.

“That was positively barbaric, Bambi,” he declares, rubbing his temples.

“You don’t keep me around to be ladylike,” she replies, laying herself out in his bed with a smug grin.

Eliot has to laugh.

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

He lays back down, allowing himself a brief respite on his dear friend’s bosom. Eliot can’t say he holds any particular affection for a woman’s breasts, but objectively speaking Margo owns a fine pair, and they are a pleasant spot to rest one’s head for a moment before the day truly begins. His queen strokes her fingers through his ever wayward curls and it eases the worst of his pounding head.

Margo groans, her arm over her eye to block the morning light streaming through Eliot’s windows.

“If he were any use at all he’d know how to get rid of my rum headache.”

Eliot sighs his agreement.

“Maybe we’re getting too old to revel in such excess,” he suggests mildly. Margo tips her chin down to stare at him incredulously, and they both burst into laughter.   

They’re still drowsing some minutes later when there comes a knock at the stateroom door. It’s a quick, nervous sound, followed by the thump of departing steps. Eliot exchanges a glance with Margo before going to see what the fuss is about. Slipping on his robe, Eliot opens his door to find a small apothecary bottle set on the floor just outside, along with a slip of parchment.

 _For rum headaches,_ it reads in a scratchy doctor’s scrawl, _Apply two drops to the temples._

“Well?” Margo demands, still stubbornly remaining in bed though their day will have to begin shortly.

“A gift,” Eliot says. He pulls the dropper from the bottle curiously and is met with the scent of instant relief. Peppermint oil.

“Ah, Bambi, your opinion of my little experiment is about to improve vastly.”

“Fine,” Margo declares begrudgingly a few minutes later, practically purring as Eliot circles his thumbs against her temples, “He can stay.”

“He’s learning fast already,” Eliot says, the sweet clean scent in his nose easing his head and settling his stomach, “The way to a pirate’s heart is through their hangover.”

With their heads no longer pounding the day to come seems less dreadful. Eliot dresses while they discuss the necessities for their attention.

“What say you, my queen,” Eliot says, unbuttoning his shirt to an appropriately scandalous degree of immodesty before sliding on his cloth of gold vest, “Foremast repairs or munitions onloading?”

“I’ll take the munitions,” Margo says, “I know you’ve got a whole slew of aesthetic ideas for the new mast that will drive the carpenters mad.”

“Why simply repair when we can improve?” Eliot asks airily, “My lady deserves to look her best.”

“As does this lady,” Margo declares, “I’m going to dress. Shall I meet you on the quarterdeck to plan?”

“Indeed. I’ll summon us some breakfast.”

Thus with the sun still low in the sky the duties of the High King begin. He and Margo must see to the repairs needed after their battle, tame as it was, as well as reorganize the cargo hold to accommodate their plunder. Eliot meets with Phillips his carpenter at length, then takes a walk about the ship to speak with each of his men who had been injured in the take. Loyalty to a crown, he’s found in his experience, comes from the actions of the king, not only his word. So he offers supportive shoulder clasps, jokes for the younger men, and compares new scars with the older ones. He too, has given blood for the _Whitespire_ , and he sees the respect in the men’s eyes when he shows it. Then it’s back to repairs, giving blood and sweat to his ship in a different way. Then it’s a few hours rest before dawn breaks and his labors begin anew.

Such is the glamorous life of a pirate king.

Three days later they stumble upon a fat and lazy merchant ship just off the coast. In their arrogance the captain has left the safety of the far off harbor without an escort, and who is Eliot to deny his crew such an easy take? On his command they hoist his violet and gold colors high, and by the time they draw close enough to board the fools have practically surrendered already. The bout costs Eliot five cannon balls and a bit of gunpowder, and in exchange the _Whitespire_ takes on a stunning cargo load of southern silks. They leave the merchant with a disabled rudder and most of the crew still alive to tell a tale of the fearsome High King and his bloody queen once they’re rescued. Eliot sails away with nary a scratch, and his crew equally hale and hearty, not to mention a good bit richer. Eliot and Margo take their pick of the spoils to save for the tailor and they offload the rest at a reputable black market on their way north. There’s another night of revelry, which Quentin does not attend, and in the morning more peppermint oil.

Before Eliot knows it nearly two weeks have gone by and he’s seen very little of their newest crew member. After their first conversation Eliot hasn’t exactly been avoiding Mr. Coldwater, per se. He’s merely been...giving him some room to settle into this new duties without his employer breathing down his neck. Regardless, Quentin’s presence is evident in small ways. Shaughnessy’s leg is healing up nicely, no sign of infection. Avery’s weak ankles are causing less trouble than usual. And intermixed with the ever present sweat and salt that clings to a ship full of men without access to plentiful bathing equipment there is a new scent, the occasional whiff of something spicy and herbal. It reaches Eliot’s nose whenever he passes by a sailor with healing bruises, due to some kind of salve that Quentin has been spreading around. It must work well, as it’s one of the few treatments Eliot has seen the men embrace fully without suspicion.

With that thought, Eliot can’t contain a sigh. What a situation. He can hardly blame his crew for their reservations, but it is an unfortunate position for Quentin to be in, considering Eliot can’t share the whole truth. Quentin has to earn the trust of the men on his own merits, not because he feels he has to do penance for his predecessor’s sins.

If he is the man Eliot hopes, all will be well with time. Until then, Eliot will keep an eye out as best he can.

“Speak freely, Todd,” Eliot says to his coxswain that evening as they observe a distant storm from the quarterdeck. It’s likely only to brush them, but it never hurts to read the weather gauge. “How fares our new doctor?”

Todd frowns, expression uncharacteristically thoughtful.

“Hard to say, Majesty. He’s still quiet, and in his mourning...he reads a man who carries a weight.”

“A tragic hero. How very drab,” Eliot remarks with a sigh, “Have the crew taken to him?”

“As much as they can, I imagine, sir,” Todd replies, “Given the last. Coldwater knows his trade, that much they can respect.”

“Indeed.” Eliot checks his compass. The storm looks to be heading away, but it wouldn’t kill them to turn east for a day, just to be sure.

“Matthews isn’t being too cruel?” he asks Todd, “I want to see the man prove his worth, not be driven to madness.”

“Only as cruel as usual I would say. No particular venom, sir. And Coldwater gives it right back.”

That makes Eliot smile. “Does he?”

“Aye, sir. He shakes like a leaf as he does, but he has quite the wit, our doctor.”  

Eliot has to laugh.  

“That’s certainly a relief. We can’t have things getting too dull on board, now can we?”

“I’d hope not, my king.”  

Eliot pulls the crushed velvet of his bottle blue coat closer around his throat as the wind turns and the first few raindrops fall.  

“Very well, set a course due east by north east, and see me in the morning,” Eliot orders, “I’m going to have a check on Baudry below decks.”

“Aye, captain.”

Eliot makes his way down to the main deck and then ducks below the low hanging beam to check in on the doctor and his injured crewman both. Baudry had suffered a peculiar spasm that afternoon, dropping a heavy crate he’d been carrying and finding himself nearly unable to walk after. From the argument Eliot overhears as he steps through the doorway, Baudry is certainly alive, at least.

“...I certainly can’t force it on you, Baudry, but I have to tell you how concerned I am—“

“—if it’s all the same to you, doctor, I’d rather not—“

“Mr. Coldwater, how fares the patient?”

Both men jump, startled by Eliot’s presence. Baudry goes pale at the motion, but he tries anyway to stand before his captain.   

“My king—“

“Keep your seat, Baudry, it’s alright,” Eliot says. Baudry sags back onto the gurney with obvious relief. Quentin hovers nearby, clearly wanting to assist but hesitant to touch the sailor. In his hands is another of his mottled glass tincture bottles.  

Eliot sighs. Things still seem to be as he feared.

“What’s your diagnosis, doctor?” Eliot asks Quentin, who seems near the end of his rope and trying to hide it. His shoulders drop, and when he meets Eliot’s gaze he can see the silent request for aid.

“He’s pulled a muscle low in his back,” Quentin says, “It—hm—that area holds the weight of the body, so to speak, when walking or lifting, which is why the injury seemed so severe. An unusual condition for one so young, but he’ll be fine after a few days laying on a firm bed.”

“Wonderful news,” Eliot says, “What seems to be the issue of contention, then?”

“It’s nothing, my king, really—“

Eliot silences Baudry with a simple raised hand. He tries not to abuse them, but Eliot has to admit kingship has its benefits.

“Mr. Coldwater?”

Quentin looks reluctant but says, “Baudry is...hesitant to take the tonic I’ve recommended.”

“Hesitant,” Eliot repeats, holding out his hand for the bottle, which Quentin surrenders willingly, “What does this tonic do, exactly?”

“It’s a relaxant.”

“Ah.” Eliot casts a more sympathetic glance at Baudry. “Do you think it truly necessary, doctor?”

“He won’t be able to sleep for the pain tonight,” Quentin explains, “It will drastically slow down his healing, not to mention make his duties dangerous."

“And this will help?” Eliot asks, smelling the contents of the bottle. It was sharp like mint, but not sweet like laudanum.

“Yes,” Quentin promises, “It’s just to ease the muscles enough to let him rest. A man uninjured would hardly even notice the effect.”

Eliot eyes the earnest expression on Quentin’s handsome face, and the fear and pain etched into Baudry’s.

“Fine then,” he says, and takes a swig of the tonic himself. That results in a small kerfuffle, as Baudry shouts “sir!” with an expression of absolute horror and Quentin has to attempt to settle the young sailor back down before he aggravates his injury. The doctor at least doesn’t seem overly concerned by Eliot’s theatrics, proving the point of his exercise.

“Do you mind if I sit?” he asks, returning Quentin his medicine bottle and perching on his stool without waiting for a reply. The herbal taste lingering in his mouth is...disgusting, but Eliot doesn’t drop dead. So.

“Now, Baudry,” he continues, “You’re the second carpenter’s mate, yes?”

Baudry still looks shocked, but he manages an “Aye, sir.”

“Excellent. Why don’t you give me an update on the foremast repairs while we wait and see if the good doctor has poisoned me.”

Quentin makes a soft sound, as though to object to such an implication against his medical ethics, but Eliot quiets him with a meaningful look.

“If in a few minutes I display no ill effects, then you will accept his treatment, and take more care to lift with your legs in the future,” Eliot says to Baudry, “Do we have an agreement?”

Baudry nods, grateful.

“Of course, my king,” he replies, “Thank you. Begging your pardon, sir, I was only nervous on account of—”

“I know why, Baudry,” Eliot says, glancing at Quentin’s perplexed expression as he cuts Baudry off, “Let’s not speak of it. Of course, if I have been drugged, I will expect you to defend me despite your injuries.”

“With my life, sir, always,” Baudry vows, sitting up straighter and going pale.  Eliot laughs, patting the young man on the shoulder.

“Alright, man. Don’t hurt yourself. Now, about the foremast…”

After a quarter hour even Baudry has to admit Eliot hasn’t suffered from the doctor’s concoction, and he willingly takes his medicine. Eliot summons a few men to assist their friend down to the crew’s quarters and then it’s just he and Quentin in the surgery.

“That was all very dramatic, but I didn’t find your tonic that repelling,” Eliot remarks, “In fact, with a little extra mint it might be quite pleasant with some rum.”

“Thank you, Eliot.”

Now, Eliot did _not_ give Quentin permission to call him by his given name outside of the stateroom, but he lets the familiarity pass because Quentin is _looking_ at him and it isn’t in anger.

“That was quite a show of trust,” Quentin continues, “One that I’m not sure I’ve earned.”

Eliot shrugs, attempting to look as regal and casual as possible as he hovers by the door.

“I have quite the intuition when it comes to men’s souls,” he says, then less flippantly, “Besides, Baudry was hurt. You and I were equally motivated to ease his pain, but his reason was clouded. What am I king for, if not to guide my men when it is needed?”

“It’ll make a difference, that you vouched for me so explicitly,” Quentin insists.

“Indeed it will. Baudry is a chatterbox,” Eliot agrees, “You should have less troubles applying your miracle cures from now on.”

“I imagine I will.”

Quentin offers him a smile. It’s small, still tinged with that ever present sadness, but Eliot takes the peace offering for what it is. He’s struck again by how lovely Mr. Coldwater is, even with the tired eyes and slumped shoulders of a long day.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave, doctor.”

Quentin nods.

“Good night, captain.”

Before he spoils the positive outcome of their encounter, Eliot retreats to his stateroom. He pours himself a bit of whiskey to rinse the medicinal flavor from his mouth and hopes that things will start to look up for Mr. Coldwater soon.

 

~

 

After a few weeks on board Quentin is magnanimously included in an ongoing dice game with the crew. He is certain Todd was the instigator of this, but the other men seem to accept his presence after a few uncertain grumbles and so he takes the olive branch for what it is. Thus, two nights a week he finds himself in the crew’s quarters, betting small coins and odd knick knacks on a roll of the dice.

It’s at one such game that he first hears of the northern king, Idri of Loria.  

“Aye, we’ve been heading north for a few weeks now,” Todd says in answer to a question from one of the younger crewman, “You know what that means, lads.”

There’s a hum from the table, along with a few knowing chuckles.  

“What _does_ that mean?” Quentin asks, contributing his bet to the pot.

“Ah, sorry doctor, I forget you haven’t been with us long,” Todd says, picking up the dice cup, “Sailing north means we’ll be having a parley with the _Sea Lion_.”

“A parley?” Quentin repeats. The dice move to Andrews, who has better luck than Todd.

“A meeting with the king of the Northern Sea,” Todd explains, “They trade gossip, resolve a few issues of territory. It’s the High King’s purview to keep the piece with his neighbors. It’s a far more pleasant game with the Lorians than the Stone Queen, or the Fae to the South.”

“Aye, we keep the peace with the Seelie court by steering clear of ‘em,” Matthews says from his place down the table, “Took the Queen’s eye, their captain did, last we saw them.”

“That’s terrible,” Quentin agrees, taking his own turn with the dice. His roll is not impressive, and Andrews takes his winnings as the men jeer.

“I hope we enjoy better relations with the Lorian King?”

His phrasing seems to strike the men as humorous.

“Oh yes, don’t worry on it doctor, the High King’s _relations_ with Idri of Loria are excellent. In fact you might say—”

“Don’t forget yourself, Andrews,” Todd warns, but he’s got a twist of humor to his expression. He assures Quentin, “The _Sea Lion_ is our ally, and the captain considers the king in the North to be a personal friend. The Blood Queen and Prince Ess on the other hand…”

There’s a groan from the table.

“God spare us their bickering,” Matthews grumbles, and starts a new round of betting.  

He doesn’t think much on the conversation until some days later, when he’s on deck with the rest of the crew, waiting for a party of Lorians to cross the gangplank. Quentin has never seen him clothed in anything that couldn’t be described as _decadent_ , but Eliot has truly dressed his best for this visit. His tunic fits snug over his chest and shoulders and hangs nearly to the floor, every inch of the garment encrusted with glass beads in a mesmerizing mosaic pattern. Glittering under the afternoon sun Quentin can’t help but think the pirate king looks like the high priest of an ancient cult, the tones of black, brown, and golden amber setting finely against his fair skin and wild hair. Beside him, Margo is dressed in equal finery, if not more sober in fashion than Quentin is accustomed to seeing her. A black leather waistcoat fits right up to her throat, with elegant translucent sleeves that shimmer subtly in the light. A strange energy resonates through the both of them as they await their guests.

 _Anticipation,_ Quentin realizes as a sailor leads the party across, bearing a black banner marked with a white thunderbolt. He is followed by the pirate who rules the seas to the North.

The _Sea Lion_ is a handsome ship, a bit sturdier than the _Whitespire_ , built to survive in the icy seas of the North. Her crew likewise seem hardier to the lower temperatures, as evidenced by the fur they seem to favor on their garments. King Idri appears in a long coat made of pure white fur. It contrasts sharply with the rich brown of his skin. He is as handsome as his ship, approaching middle age but fit, Quentin can tell by his bare chest on display beneath his coat. He carries power on his shoulders; that regal energy that burns behind Eliot’s eyes like a hearthfire is a steady, banked force within the Lorian king, evidence of many years of leadership.   

Idri steps on board, and his joined by a young man who Quentin judges to be his son, going by his fine manner of dress and similar features. A few more crewman join them to form a loose delegation before Eliot speaks.

“King Idri, Prince Ess. Welcome aboard the _Whitespire_.”

The northern king replies in a smooth, deep voice, “King Eliot. It is a pleasure as always to be your guest.”

Neither man bows. Instead, both draw their swords. Quentin jumps at the flash of steel, but Todd remains stone faced beside him, and he assumes this is all part of the ceremony. Eliot passes his blade hilt first to Margo, and King Idri does the same, giving his broadsword to his son. Unarmed, the two kings approach and greet each other with a friendly embrace. Perhaps more than friendly, Quentin realizes, as the king rests one hand at the small of Eliot’s back. When they part they leave their hands clasped between them, a terribly intimate handshake.

“You’ve had a long journey to meet us today,” Eliot says, “Can I offer you a drink in my cabin?”

King Idri smiles.

“I would love nothing more.”

Eliot leads the way to his quarters with an elegant wave of his arm, and the two men vanish below decks. Still in front of them, Margo sheathes Eliot’s sword at her waist.

“Alright, Ess,” she declares, “Let’s deal.”

Margo claps her hands, and the men spring into motion. A table is placed on the deck, and two chairs, along with quills, parchment, navigational tools, and...an abacus? Quentin approaches to take a closer look, and the queen spots him.

“Good, Coldwater, you’re here,” Margo says, waving him over, “Have you ever supervised a duel?”

“Um, yes? But it was called off before—”

Margo cuts him off with a wave of her hand.

“Fine.” She turns to the Lorian prince. “Ess, this is our doctor. Do you accept him as an acceptable witness should there be a duel?”

The prince surveys Quentin skeptically, but nods.

“He’ll have to do.”

“Alright then,” Margo says, as Todd pulls out here chair for her, “Let’s talk trade with the East. What exactly has the Stone Queen promised you?”  

“Um.” Quentin is very confused. “My queen, if you’re negotiating trade, shouldn’t the captain be—”  

“The High King is negotiating his _own_ terms with King Idri,” Margo explains in a tone of voice that only confuses Quentin further, “Prince Ess and I handle the brick and mortar.”

“Oh.”    

“No need to remain underfoot, doctor,” Margo says, a flash of her eye warning him not to question her in front of their guests again, “You’ll be summoned if this one makes me draw blood.”

Quentin accepts the banishment gracefully. He returns to his quarters only to remember that the walls are thinner than is strictly decent between his cabin and Eliot’s. He’s hardly sat down at his desk when he hears a thump, some intentioned rustling, and then the absolutely unmistakable sound of a long and drawn out moan of pleasure. Quentin is nearly frozen, like a deer before a hunter’s bow, as he comprehends _exactly_ how good relations stand between the kings of the northern and western seas.  

— _god yes, Idri,_ there _,_ _please_ —

Quentin is practically chased back into the daylight by the sounds of urgent, rhythmic creaking and the High King’s muffled groans of ecstasy.    

“Alright, doctor?” Todd asks when Quentin plops down beside him at the bow, “You look at little red.”  

“Fine.”

He _is_ fine. Quentin is _fine_ and totally fine with the sounds of Eliot Waugh being pleasured out of his mind ringing in his ears. He’s completely and utterly _not_ imagining all six feet of the High King stripped bare of his finery and panting in the arms of Idri of Loria. Not imagining the sweat shine of his throat or the flush bleeding down his chest…

“Um, is that alcohol?” Quentin asks, pointing at the tin flask in Todd’s hands.  

“Yes?” Todd looks too amused. “Care for a nip?”

“Actually, I would.”  

Quentin lets the whiskey burn down his throat and banish all thoughts of Eliot—and his glittering, clinging robes, and his long, elegant fingers, and his husky pleas for _more, more, harder_ —from his mind.   

~

 

Eliot loves it when Idri comes around. Being a king on an isolated sailing vessel necessarily limits one’s bed partners even among pirates, who are a relatively loose bunch. Not only is King Idri of Loria world class between the sheets, he understands the life. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, etc. etc. The only other person Eliot has in his life to share those feelings with is Margo, but his beloved queen can’t give him the one thing Idri never fails to.

Namely, a good hard fuck.

Lounging in bed after a _very_ satisfying half hour spent on his back, Eliot rolls himself a cigarette while Idri lights his preferred ivory pipe. In short order the air is hazy with clove smoke and the scent of their mutually pleasurable exertion. Eliot tucks himself into Idri’s side, welcoming the press of lips against his temple with a pleased hum.

“I wish I could bargain so agreeably with all my rivals,” he says, just to hear Idri’s low, rich laugh rumble in his chest.

“Indeed, I doubt the Stone Queen will offer such warm accommodations.”

Eliot smiles as Idri threads his fingers in his hair, playing absently with the dark tresses.

“I’ve missed this.”

“As have I,” Eliot replies.

In these moments, warm and content, Eliot finds himself wishing they could cross paths more often than the once or twice a year tumble they enjoy presently, but in his heart he knows anything more than temporary with Idri isn’t to be.

At the end of the day they’re kings of separate oceans. What’s between them isn’t anything close to love, just...a mutual understanding. Their crowns will never allow them to simply be men, at least not with each other.

“I caught a look at your new doctor,” Idri says, just making conversation, “He seems...nervous.”

Eliot can’t help but laugh.

“Oh, he is. You have no idea.”

Coldwater is still as likely to jump out of his skin as not if any of the men so much as tap him on the shoulder, even Todd, who Eliot personally finds to be one of the least threatening people he’s ever met in his life. Bit by bit, though, Quentin is beginning to come out of his shell. It started with just a flash when he pulled that splinter out of Eliot’s shoulder on the first night. Now, Eliot walks past Quentin, on deck in only his shirtsleeves, talking with the crew while slathering them all with one of his weird herbal remedies to help ward off sunstroke or the rickets or what have you. He moves his hands so much when he talks, gesticulating and pushing his hair out of his bright eyes as he explains “no, no, it’s because of the _carrot_ oil—yes, right, just like the garden at home—except that it requires a specific drying process to mature the sugars, and then you have to—”

And it’s nonsense, really. Apothecary jargon, every time, but Quentin so obviously believes in the power of it. Trusts in his knowledge of it when he finds it so difficult to trust anything else about himself, that it pulls the men around him like moths to a lantern.

God, it’s a thing to watch.

“He’s still like a spooked horse around a blade,” Eliot says, but, feeling bizarrely protective of his little pet project, adds, “He’s smart, though. Helpful.”

“Attractive enough, too,” Idri observes, a twinkle in his eye, “Not in a way that piques my interest, but I think by now I’ve learned a thing or two about your tastes.”

Eliot takes a long drag on his cigarette. Imagines blowing the smoke over the long smooth column of Quentin Coldwater’s bare back.

Delicious.

“He is a bit of an indulgence,” he admits, “But only for the eyes. We have a bargain, and I have my thieves’ honor.”

“ _Do_ you.” Idri’s voice is lightly mocking as he presses a kiss to Eliot’s shoulder.

“ _Yes_ ,” He insists with a pout at Idri’s show of skepticism, “Besides, Coldwater is of more use to me as a doctor than a bedmate, tempting as the thought may be.”

“Sacrifices for the greater good,” Idri murmurs, sympathetic. Eliot sighs.

“Indeed.”

Eliot rolls over to stub out his cigarette in an empty crystal goblet.

“So,” he says, stretching out to lay his head in Idri’s lap, “Margo and Ess are no doubt dueling as we speak for raiding rights in the Gilded Isles—“

“They do love to do that.”

“—so what do _you_ bring to trade, your Majesty?”

Idri smiles at Eliot’s playful title, but then his expression sobers.

“A warning,” he replies, “Which I consider a gift between us.”

“We don’t really do gifts. It must be serious.”

“I think it may be.” Idri strokes his thumb absently over the dip of Eliot’s collarbone. “My men in the Capital tell me there is a new magistrate in favor with the Crown. One who intends to make a name for himself sending pirates to the gallows.”

“Another bureaucrat who thinks he can root us out?” Eliot scoffs, “He sounds like a fool.”

“He undoubtedly is,” Idri continues, “But he is an ambitious fool, one who does not follow the Silent Law. Already he has taken men from the Fae Queen’s sovereign territories.”

“I’m sure she’s thrilled with that development.”

“Indeed. And perhaps she will kill him and save the rest of us concern over it. But have caution, should you venture homeward, Eliot. Our safe places are no longer guaranteed.”

Eliot frowns.

“Even the Crown wouldn’t dare to touch Fen.”

“I hope not.”

Idri fits his hand, gently, to the curve of Eliot’s throat.

He says, with a tenderness that Eliot will only ever know in brief flashes, the kind of affection that Idri’s late wife must have enjoyed in full force, that Eliot can’t imagine surviving under the brunt of without falling to pieces, “I’m very fond of this neck. I would prefer it to stay unbroken.”

Eliot smiles, but he can’t meet Idri’s warm gaze. Instead he sits up and pulls Idri into a kiss. Idri tips him down into the bedcovers and Eliot welcomes him back between his legs. Idri fits his impressive cock where Eliot is still slick and easy as Eliot gasps into his ear, “The feeling is entirely mutual.”

Idri has him a second time and, eventually, a leisurely third, but all too soon they are dressed again in both their clothing and their kingship, standing at odds on the deck before their respective men. Margo stands at Eliot’s right, and at Idri’s right his son, sporting a fresh bandage over his ribs.

Eliot contains his grin, only just. So there had been a duel, enough to require Mr. Coldwater’s services. Eliot catches the eye of their doctor, standing at the fringes of their little court gathering. As quickly as he makes contact Quentin flushes bright and looks away, which leaves Eliot feeling strangely pleased.

Apparently the walls between their cabins are as thin as he had remembered.  

Eliot sorts those thoughts away for later as Idri offers him his hand, which he gladly clasps.

“Thank you for your hospitality.”

“It’s always a pleasure to parley with the King in the North,” Eliot replies, shivering pleasantly as Idri’s spend runs down the inside of his thigh. A knowing smile plays at Idri’s lips.

“Until our paths cross again.”

With only small regret, Eliot sees their guests across the gangplank, and then the Lorians take their leave. In no time at all the _Sea Lion_ is only a toy ship on the horizon. Eliot watches them vanish, allowing himself one wistful sigh.

Beside him, Margo snorts.  

“That good, huh?”

“Oh Bambi, you know it was. Did you get the raiding rights?”

“You know I did. And I even left Ess with his manhood intact at the end of it.”

Eliot smiles, pulling Margo in close so he can press a kiss to his queen’s brow.

“That’s my girl.”  

~

 

Their encounter with Idri and the Lorians leaves the captain of the _Whitespire_ in an exceedingly good mood. The whole ship is thrumming with it, really, as they set a more southerly course and sail into the balmy breezes of early summer, but none more so than the High King. Quentin feels a mild sort of envy in the following days, watching Eliot pull Margo into a waltz about the quarter deck and race the cabin boys into the perilous heights of the rigging.

 _Indeed_ , Quentin muses as Eliot whoops his victory to the skies like a madman from the crow’s nest far above their heads, _the King in the North must be a very capable lover._    

One bright morning Quentin awakens to the sound of swords clashing on deck. For a heart stopping moment he thinks they’re under attack, but then the ring of steel on steel is punctuated by Eliot’s laughter, rich and carefree.

“Come on Todd, your footwork is an embarrassment to both of us. I’ve taught you better than that.”

“You know I can’t beat you, sir.”

“Damn right, but at least try and keep it interesting.”

His heart rate settles as quickly as it spiked and Quentin sighs, consigning himself to wakefulness. Pulling on trousers and his waistcoat, Quentin eyes his heavy jacket before leaving it off. He’s living among pirates. Surely his shirtsleeves can be considered decent enough to walk across to the deck and seek out some tea from the galley.

Quentin’s small quest for a biscuit and something hot to drink is derailed when he steps up to the light and is admittedly distracted by the sight of the early morning exercises which woke him. It’s a small but energetic group that has gathered to see their king show off, cheering and hooting as Eliot dances across the deck, his blade glinting in the sun as he mock duels with another crewman, Matthews this time. His movements are gallant and graceful, made more so by the full sleeves of his white shirt and the close fit of his courtly black velvet waistcoat, heavily embroidered with gold thread.

Eliot spots Quentin rubbing the sleep from his eyes and his grin is brighter than the glitter of the morning sun across the gold on his chest.

“Ah, Mr. Coldwater, isn’t it a fine morning to be alive and at sea?”

Quentin yawns, and searches his pockets for his ever wandering bit of leather to tie his hair back from his face.

“As you say, captain,” he replies, managing a loose knot at the back of his neck as Eliot swipes, jabs, and pushes Matthews across their small space of empty deck like a cat toying with a mouse.  

Quentin doesn’t pretend to be unhappy when Matthews lands on his ass a few moments later, Eliot’s blade at his throat. Eliot’s good mood is infectious however, for even the grumpy sailor manages a hearty laugh, his hands raised in surrender.  

“I yield, Majesty,” he says, “This old man is no match for your youth.”

Eliot offers his crewman a hand up from the deck.

“Nonsense, Matthews, you nearly had me that time,” he says, slapping Matthews on the back.

“Aye sir, and next you’ll tell me I could outsail Davy Jones,” Matthews scoffs.

“What am I here for, if not to inspire?”

Eliot laughs as Matthews hobbles off to return to his duties. He plays at dueling an invisible opponent, stabbing and sweeping his blade in a sophisticated display that indicates long experience and excellent training. He’s left handed, Quentin realizes when he can’t quite make sense of the rhythm of Eliot’s blows. It makes him a trickier opponent, his obvious skill besides. It seems oddly appropriate for the pirate king.

Eliot completes a particularly intricate flourish before calling out to Quentin, “Did you enjoy the bout, doctor?”

Quentin rolls his eyes, but admits, “You’re very good, captain.”

“Well, crossing blades has always been a pastime near and dear to my heart.”

Eliot actually _winks_ as he says this, as though Quentin needs any assistance to interpret the entendre that positively drips from his words.  

“I have no doubt,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest. Part of him wishes he hadn’t left his jacket off after all, feeling naked under Eliot’s high spirited gaze. The other half of him that’s still a man of flesh and blood can’t help but reply, “I learned to fence as well, in school.”

An flash of an expression—surprise, delight?—passes over Eliot’s features before he laughs.

“So did I. But that is mere play. On the high seas you learn to use a cutlass properly, or you don’t remain a king for long.”

“And you have enjoyed a long reign, I gather,” Quentin says, leaning against the balustrade where Todd is still nursing his wounded pride from Eliot’s earlier victory.

“No man alive can best me,” Eliot declares with an intricate flourish.  

“He has to specify that,” Todd says to Quentin from behind his hand, “Because Queen Margo puts him on his ass every time.”

“Todd, I _will_ gut you like a fish,” comes a sing-song reply.

“Whoops, I think I’m needed on the bow.”

Todd scurries away, leaving Quentin the sole target of Eliot’s early morning vigor.

“Since none of these dogs can hold their own,” Eliot says, voice full of obvious fondness for his crew, “What say you, doctor? Care to give a little exhibition of your boarding school skills?”

“I was never much of a talent,” Quentin attempts to demur, “You would find a match with me uninteresting, I assure you.”

“And yet your modesty _piques_ my interest.”

Eliot looks to one of his men, who draws his blade and offers it to Quentin hilt first.

“Really, captain,” he says, “It isn’t humility. I’m use—”

Quentin catches himself before he says the word _useless_ , but he catches the quirk of Eliot’s brow and knows he’s been caught out.

“The day may come on board this ship when you’ll have to defend yourself, or your patients,” Eliot replies, a shade of command entering his voice, “It would ease my mind to know you aren’t completely unarmed. So square up, Mr. Coldwater.”

Quentin sighs, and reluctantly accepts the sailor’s cutlass. It sits awkwardly in his grip, heavier than the fencing foil he remembers from school. He steps self-consciously out to face Eliot, swinging the blade back and forth a few times to try and awaken his muscle memory. He can feel the eyes of the other men on him, gleefully awaiting his making a fool of himself, no doubt.

Eliot isn’t particularly helping, back to teasing as they circle each other.

“No need for nerves,” he says, flourishing his blade as easily as breathing, “What’s a little bout between friends?”

“Is that what we are, captain?” Quentin asks.

Eliot’s eyebrows rise, but his lips twist with amusement.

“Colleagues then,” he replies, taking a loose stance with his cutlass ready.

“If this is part of some intricate plan to maim or murder me,” Quentin says, taking up a reluctant _en garde_ , “You aren’t being very subtle about it.”

“Oh, if I intend to kill you, you’ll know it,” Eliot promises, “Just give your best. If it eases your mind I’ll step lightly for the first round.”

“You have my undying gratitude, captain.”

His lessons in the _salle_ seem a lifetime ago, but Quentin remembers the rudimentary forms. Eliot has him bested already in reach—certainly in skill—but if the High King thinks Quentin utterly without spine, he’ll find himself mistaken.

Quentin darts forward, counting on the element of surprise as he feints right, then sweeps his blade left. Eliot’s eyes widen, and he blocks the blow, but not before Quentin has managed a shallow nick in his billowing sleeve. Eliot shoves Quentin back with his free hand and fingers the small tear in the material.

“Really?” Eliot asks, exasperated, “Do you know how tedious it is to mend silk, doctor?

Quentin regains his balance and stands at the ready.

“Shall we count that as first blood?” He asks innocently. Eliot rolls his eyes, but his good mood apparently cannot be spoiled.

“Very well,” he allows, “but vengeance will come swiftly, Mr. Coldwater.”

Indeed, Quentin has to move fast when Eliot lunges for him blade first. He manages a block, and then a passable counter, his feet falling into the patterns of long forgotten exercises. This doesn’t escape Eliot’s notice.

“You fence in the Capital style.”

Eliot is obviously toying with him, his strikes leisurely as he observes Quentin’s technique, like a cat with a mouse. Each block is still an effort for Quentin, as he can’t seem to find a pattern to the king’s blows.

“You don’t,” Quentin replies, jabbing towards Eliot’s sword shoulder and getting a slap on the ribs with the flat of Eliot’s blade for his troubles, “Where did you learn?”

“Here on this very bit of deck,” Eliot reveals. He side steps another of Quentin’s strikes with a dancer’s grace, and Quentin barely turns in time to sweep Eliot’s blade away from his kidney.

“I’ve known this ship man and boy, doctor. My teacher was Mayakovsky the Bear.”

“He must have been skilled, to produce a student like yourself.”

Eliot’s is picking up his pace, each blow flowing like water from one to the next as Quentin does his best not to stumble. Each clash between them sends a shiver up his sword arm. For all his stork-like grace Eliot is strong as well, even when he duels in jest.

“Yes, well, the student does surpass the master, as it turns out.”

Eliot’s words are light, while Quentin’s breath is already coming hard. His eyes sting with sweat, and he can feel his shirt clinging to his back indecently.

“I don’t understand.”

“I killed him,” Eliot says, “In a duel for the captaincy of this ship.”

Quentin barely blocks Eliot’s next strike, taken aback by the pirate’s cool admission of murder.

“You killed the man who taught you to fight like this?”

“He was a good swordsman, but he was cruel, and irrational,” Eliot brushes aside Quentin’s clumsy counter, swinging his blade up neatly to rest in the hollow of Quentin’s throat, “And in my way. His was the cleanest life I’ve ever taken. One of them, anyway.”

Despite his cavalier remarks Eliot casts his gaze down, briefly, whether unable to meet Quentin’s eye or merely lost in thought Quentin couldn’t say, but he presses the momentary advantage. He sidesteps Eliot’s cutlass and attempts a feint to the king’s less protected right side, only to be met with the singing of steel as Eliot counters him before he has the chance to execute the turn to the left.

“A clever maneuver, doctor, but all for naught.” Eliot sounds nothing less than delighted as their blades lock. Then, with a swift twist of his wrist that was certainly not learned on a fencing _salle_ , he sends Quentin’s blade flying from his hand.

Before he even hears the clatter of the cutlass on the deck Quentin finds himself turned around, his dominant arm pinned to his back and Eliot’s sword under his chin once more. He makes a show of struggling, but with the king’s height over him Quentin is well and truly stuck in Eliot’s commanding grasp.

“Do you yield?”

The High King’s voice his a murmur in his ear; his blade a whisper against Quentin’s throat.

Quentin can’t keep the grin from his face when he replies, “Never.”

The next second lasts ten, as Quentin feels Eliot draw in a surprised breath beside his ear. His grip on Quentin’s wrist tightens, and the sword draws ever so slightly closer to his vulnerable neck, sending Quentin’s heart racing.

Then with a laugh, Eliot nimbly flips the blade in his hand to give a playful tap to Quentin’s Adam’s apple with the dull back edge.

“I like your spirit,” Eliot says, drawing his cutlass away, “But I think a pistol will be better suited for your safekeeping.”

Quentin is strangely breathless as Eliot releases him, sending him stumbling a bit with a boyish shove.

“I did warn you, captain,” he says, rubbing his wrist where Eliot had held him so firmly.  

“You did well enough, Q, for a boarding school man.”

Quentin retrieves his blade from the deck and happily sees it back to its original owner. He tucks the stray locks that have fallen from his bun behind his ears and pulls his shirt away from his chest where it’s stuck with sweat.

“Q?” he has to ask. It’s been a long time since he heard the endearment fall from a companion’s lips. Eliot grins, his eyes flicking from Quentin’s sweat dampened chest back up to his face.

“Yes, I thought it charming.” There is something hot in Eliot’s gaze. A challenge, but a friendly one, not unlike their mock duel. He asks: “Is it too familiar for your sensibilities?”

“Once a man has held his blade to my throat and let me live to tell the tale, he may call me what he likes,” Quentin replies.

Eliot laughs again, and offers Quentin a proper fencing salute.

“How very sporting of you, sir.”

The next crewman is eager to take Quentin’s place, several men still waiting to test their mettle against the skill of their king. He bows out with a “good day to you, captain,” grinning when he hears the “and you as well, Q” called after him.

A few minutes later and Quentin is tucked away contentedly near the bowsprit, a spare crate making a fine seat for him to enjoy his tea and hardtack as the ship bustles around him. He would normally retreat back to his surgery to breakfast, but something about his duel with the High King has left Quentin feeling...invigorated. For once he finds himself eager to breathe the salt air and see the glint of the sun off the waves stretching into the horizon. All the while the playful clash of blades sounds from the stern, punctuated by the men’s cheers and Eliot’s bawdy jokes.  

It’s _exciting_ , Quentin realizes. As though he’s just realized he’s on board a pirate ship. Like something out of a novel, or a tavern song. He’s thrumming with energy, all from a little play at sword fighting with a handsome swashbuckler.

Perhaps he should seek such exercise more often.

“Doctor!”

The shout comes, urgent but not panicked, from over his head in the lower rigging.

“Phillips just got his thumb but good with a hammer! Could you come and have a look?”

Quentin sighs, not unhappily, at the shout that reaches him from the lower rigging.

Duty calls. Quentin knocks back the last of his tea and goes to see about Phillips, a little extra spring in his step.

 

~

 

It’s a calm evening on the _Whitespire_ , the sound of the sea sloshing gently against her hull as Eliot endures his queen’s loving exasperation.

“For god’s sake, Eliot, just bed him if you want to so badly.”  

Eliot ignores his queen in favor of refilling his tumbler from the crystal bottle of gin they’re sharing in his stateroom. After three drinks Eliot has become maudlin, as usual, and after three drinks Margo has lost all compassion for him, as usual. Eliot doesn’t mean to drag their evening into the quagmire of his sexual frustrations. He simply can’t seem to shake the memory of that little mock duel this morning. Quentin, uncertain and clumsy, his technique rudimentary but his _eyes,_ bright and determined like Eliot has never seen him. Then—good god—the heat of him, pinned to Eliot’s chest, the softness of his hair tickling Eliot’s cheek as he teased—    

_Do you yield, doctor?_

The flush on his cheeks as Quentin tipped his head back, baring his throat with a helpless grin as he bites out—

_Never._

Lord, Eliot had nearly had him right there on the deck, and his conscience be damned.

Unfortunately—

“I can’t, and you know it,” he says at last, the sparking taste of juniper cooling his palate as he reclines on his favored chaise, Margo stretched out opposite him, “We struck a bargain. He’s here under duress, practically—”

“Barely,” Margo scoffs, “And he’s a grown man besides. Let him turn you down, if it pleases him.”

“Would he?” Eliot asks morosely.

“No, because he wants he wants his mouth on your—”

“ _No_ , because he’s under the impression his life hangs on his obedience to my whim,” Eliot corrects her.

Margo shrugs.

“Correct his impression.”

“Right, because the word of a pirate—”

“—a _king—”_

“A _pirate_ king will settle his doubts,” Eliot continues, “‘Oh, Mr. Coldwater, how about a quick tumble? I promise not to kill you if you say no.’ Just speaking it out loud makes me feel so very villainous.”

His queen has no response to that. Eliot sighs, stroking her ankles where they rest in his lap.

“I told him about Myakovsky,” he says, voice lower, “Just mentioned it really. To see how our doctor might feel about fraternizing with a killer.”

Margo frowns.

“Coldwater already knew our trade when he agreed to come on board,” she says, “Besides, Myakovsky was a tyrant. You slew him in a fair duel, which was a more honorable death than he deserved.”

“I have no regrets,” Eliot says, completely honest, “But you should have seen how he looked at me.”

“And how was that?”   

Eliot tips his head languidly against the back of the chaise, closing his eyes and considering. He sees Quentin across from him in the morning light, a blade in hand and soft wisps of hair hanging flyaway about his face. He can see his brows rise, then furrow, his lips parting in surprise, but not horror.

“Less shocked than I had imagined,” Eliot admits, “I’m still not certain if that bodes well or ill for his reading of my character.”  

Margo hums, sipping her gin.

“I think you are making this a guessing game where it need not be one,” She says, lifting one elegant brow, “Perhaps ‘Q’ will come to _you_ , and your puzzling over his moral compass will have been a waste.”

Eliot laughs, staring down at his nearly empty glass.

“No, Bambi,” he says, “It isn’t to be. I must see to my kingly duties, and take my pleasure in a year when we next see Idri, or seek companionship among the winsome young men looking to earn an honest coin at the next port of call.”

Margo pouts, more than a little teasing as she sits up to pat his cheek.

“Poor thing,” she says, grin wrinkling her nose when Eliot rolls his eyes, “I hope you’ll save me a few of the winsome boys, though. Mama needs some action too, and we don’t all get to fuck our Lorian counterparts.”

Eliot catches his queen by the chin, and leans down to give her a quick peck on the lips.

“I’ll consider it a set engagement,” he promises.

They get well and foolishly tipsy together, pretending they live the carefree life of the pirates of song and won’t have to be up at dawn tomorrow to keep their chaotic kingdom running. Margo eventually leaves him with a kiss, stumbling back to her own quarters in search of her preferred feather down pillows. Eliot, loose with drink and the desire for sleep, corks the remaining gin and slips out of his robe. He climbs into bed bare chested, enjoying the slide of cool silk sheets against his skin as he settles in.

Eliot has only closed his eyes for a moment when his rest is interrupted.

It’s a soft sound, that comes through the wall. A whimper. Quentin must lay his head on the same end of the mattress as Eliot for him to even have heard it. Eliot opens his eyes in the dark, and focuses in time to hear:  

“... _Alice…”_

Eliot sighs to hear Quentin call out the name of his lost love. He hopes the doctor is taken by a sweet dream, and not a nightmare. He thinks to roll over, and leave him to his dreams, good or ill, when next comes a surprise.

Another whimper. A soft, high sound, then:

“— _liot_ …”

That leaves Eliot is wide awake, and nearly sober. That was almost unmistakably _his_ name in Quentin Coldwater’s mouth. He sits up, as silently as he can, thoughts racing. Does Quentin speak his name in fear? Desire?  

God help him, Eliot presses his ear to the wood. He has to know. His belly aches with dread he didn’t expect. Is he the villain of Quentin’s nightmares? Did he imagine the shape of his name falling from the doctor’s lips?

He waits, heart in his throat.

And then—

— _but then—_

 _—_ a low, guttural, drawn out moan of need that ends in a slurred _“...my king…”_

 _Oh_.

Eliot is electrified. Dumbstruck. Quentin is _not_ afraid; he’s wanting, _needing,_ calling out in his dreams for—  

Eliot nearly jolts off the bed when next he hears a gasp, and the _thunk_ of a hand on the wall nearly right where his ear is pressed. A sudden awakening. Eliot can’t pretend he isn’t disappointed to hear the mysterious dream come to an end.

But then...shifting, rustling...then _more_ rustling. Steady rustling, like the motion of a hand.

Harsh breathing.

A short, urgent groan.

Eliot barely contains his gasp as he realizes _Quentin is pleasuring himself._ There can be no other explanation.

God, he should be ashamed. He should pull away. He should give a man his privacy. He should respect all the morals and ethics he just scolded Margo over.

He doesn’t. He _can’t_.

He presses impossible closer, his own cock slowly hardening beneath his loose trousers. He stays tremendously still and quiet, because if anything spoils Quentin’s desperate panting breaths Eliot swears he will sink the ship himself. So he listens, and breathes as silently as he can, and imagines holding Quentin down and kissing him and rubbing their cocks together until they both spill helplessly on the deck of the _Whitespire_.

As if on cue, there is another shifting of bedcovers, and then a barely audible but steady creaking as Quentin’s efforts turn urgent. Eliot pictures him rolled onto his belly, one of his clever hands fit just so in the slim gap between his hips and the mattress, rocking desperately into his own fist. His brow furrowed and his lips bitten red as he draws so close to climax.  

 _Yes,_ Eliot purrs in the safety of his own mind, _That’s right, Q. You deserve this. I would give you this. Think of me._

Then—

A pause.

Then—

A choked, bitten off little sound of pleasure, followed by a long, soft sigh, and a disbelieving laugh that makes Eliot’s heart hurt even as his own arousal throbs.

_Oh Quentin. How long has it been, darling?_

He can hear when Quentin shuffles out of bed, his footsteps padding away to the other side of his cabin, and Eliot makes his escape before he can be caught out listening in. He leaves his own bed deftly, cursing the wooden beads that threaten to make an awful clatter, but eventually he makes it to his chaise and the bottle of gin that still stands glimmering in the dim room.

Eliot uncorks the bottle with relief. He is not yet drunk enough to deal with what he’s just experienced. He pours himself a drink which he swallows like water, then a second which he cradles as he reclines against cool velvet.  

This changes nothing, Eliot promises himself. Tomorrow he must still be a fair captain and an honest king to all of his men, Mr. Coldwater included.

Tomorrow.

Eliot sips his gin, and slides a hand into his trousers where he’s still hard and aching. He strokes himself, once, and has to bite back his own sound of pleasure.

Yes. Tomorrow, he will keep the health of his ship above his own selfish desires.

But tonight— _j_ _ust_ tonight—he can indulge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming soon in Part 3: One step forward, two steps back  
> Comments are life!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I: The Pirates' Doctor  
> Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, a quick update since this was already mostly written. I want to give an extra warning here for slightly more explicit medical trauma than usual, and for bad mental health spaces, suicidal ideation on par with canon (episode 3.6), and reference to child abuse, also on par with canon. Feel free to message me @summersteve on tumblr if you'd like more spoilerish warnings. Take care of yourself everybody!

At the start of the third month Quentin loses a patient.

It’s a beautiful day, and they’re sailing out from a small island having just taken on—through actual legitimate trade—some fresh supplies. Alongside the spices and sugarcane sure to make Joshua happy down in the galley and dark liquors to please the captain they’ve obtained several large crates of fresh fruit, which will have to be eaten quickly before they spoil. The crew are enjoying the treat for what it is and Quentin is enjoying the use of his sketchbook for the first time on board. There several varieties of stone fruit he’s never seen before, at least not in person, and an intriguing strain of fist sized melon that Quentin hypothesizes might have useful medicinal purposes. Perched on a low crate he slices each sample in half to examine the seeds and the qualities of the flesh. He makes a careful drawing of each with a bit of charcoal and adds his notes to the page below in order to compare with his books later that evening in his cabin. From his kit he pulls some wax paper to seal away the seeds, should he be able to sprout them later. Quentin smiles to think of Eliot’s amusement when he tries to start a garden on the quarterdeck.

It’s a small pleasure, to trust his powers of observation and puzzle over something new.

Quentin will wish in a few hours that he hadn’t taken that moment for granted, when his trade was seeking knowledge and not holding the life and death of men in his hands.  

“Doctor!”

At the sharp, frightened shout Quentin looks up from his notes to find Shaughnessy on his knees beside an older crewman who looks to have collapsed. It’s Thomas, he realizes as he leaves his book and runs to the two sailors who are blessedly only a few yards away. He drops to his knees, tearing the jacket off his shoulders and tossing it aside so that he can have his full reach. Thomas is nearly convulsing, his face going slowly red and limbs flailing.

“Hold him still,” Quentin demands, sliding the strap of his kit over his shoulder, “What happened?”

Thomas is obviously panicking, clawing at his throat as though he can’t take in air. Shaughnessy does his best to hold him down enough for Quentin to attempt to check his heart and eyes but to little avail.

“I-I don’t know, sir,” he says, frantic, “I just saw him drop and something fell out of his hand—maybe he’s choked?”

Quentin forces the man’s jaw open and sweeps his mouth, feeling for anything that could be blocking his airway, to no avail—except—   

Quentin flips open the flap of his kit to pluck the small square of mirror he keeps at ready access. He holds it in front of Thomas’ mouth, waiting to see the tell-tale fog of breath.

Nothing.

Nothing.

 _Nothing_.

“He’s not—his lungs! His lungs are closed,” Quentin realizes, panicked, “I need a hollow tube, and my knife.”

“A...tube?”

“A reed, a pipe, a hollow pen nib, anything! ...Now!”

Shaughnessy scrambles away and returns blessedly quickly with the thin stem of a wooden pipe. Quentin ignores the other men circling around and his own shaking hands as he performs the most terrifying tracheotomy of his life.

Find the gap at the base of the throat between cartilage and bone.

Make the cut, sparing the artery.  

Take the makeshift intubation and—

Quentin punches the thin end of the pipe into the base of Thomas’ neck, and nearly cries with relief when the sailor’s rib cage is able to expand. It’s a thin, reedy, disturbing sort of breath that passes through the pipe, but it is one, and it settles Thomas’ panic, buying Quentin a moment to find the source of the calamity.

When he does, he wishes he hadn’t.  

On the ground near Thomas’ body they find a piece of fruit that had fallen from his hand, a bite missing. It’s one of the strange plum like fruits Quentin had been drawing earlier. He couldn’t say without yet having looked in his botany books, but it was likely something Thomas had never eaten before. Quentin’s heart sinks as he notices too late the raised red rashes blooming down Thomas’ arms, and around his throat.  

“It was the fruit,” he breathes, hope draining away to cold dread, “He’s going to die.”

“What?” Shaughnessy demands, “You just did something, didn’t you? Won’t that put him right?”

“No—no it’s not, I—I’m sorry,” Quentin stammers, “I can’t stop it, only slow the process.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s the fruit. It’s poison to him.” Quentin tries to explain what the most modern medicine still didn’t fully have terms for. “It’s a weakness in the blood. He was born to it. Certain foods—it squeezes the lungs. Without warning, like a fist. It’s going to worsen, quickly, until...”

His voice breaks, but Quentin looks the dying man in the eye to tell him, “Thomas, you only have a few minutes. I’m sorry.”

Thomas’ pupils are blown, his lips going blue as he wheezes, but he manages the barest nod. With a spasming hand he fumbles with his collar. At first Quentin thinks he’s scratching at his throat again, and moves to stop him, but Thomas manages to catch his fingers on a thin gold chain, and pulls a small locket free where it had been hidden under his shirt.

“I don’t understand,” Quentin says, but a heavy hand lands on his shoulder.  

“I do.”

Matthews takes a knee beside Quentin on the hard deck.

“He has a daughter, grown, in the king’s village,” he explains, carefully pulling the locket over Thomas’ head as he promises, “I’ll see that she gets it, lad.”

Even with the life steadily draining out of him, the relief on Thomas’ face is plain. The men around them look shocked, a few shedding tears already for their friend. Shaughnessy’s face is red and blotchy.

Quentin just feels numb.  

“If you’re of no more use, doctor, you might give us the moment. We’ll stay with him.”

Matthews’ tone is dismissive. It’s still kinder than what Quentin deserves.

“I...yes.” Quentin spares them all any more of his useless apologies and stumbles to his feet, taking his kit with him.  

“It’s alright, old man,” he hears Matthews rumble to Thomas as he runs away like a _coward_ , “Still better than the end of a rope, ‘innit?”  

Quentin shuts the door of his cabin behind him and enters a hell of his own making, a fine tremble in his limbs as he sinks to the floor with a dry, gasping sob.  

He’d been doing so well. He’d—he’d been _helping_ , and learning, and maybe even earning trust. He’d been _feeling_ , breathing in the salt air and seeing the glint of the sun on the sea for what felt like the first time. He’d even—for the first time in months—woken from a heated dream full of soft feminine lips and elegant masculine hands, his body waking up to desires he hadn’t felt in years.

Of course it could only last for a moment.

Why couldn’t he ever feel _good_?

Quentin couldn’t say when exactly his panic slid sideways back into familiar nothingness, only that he’s still on the floor of his cabin and daylight no longer shines cruelly bright through his windows. The darkness makes his quarters even more oppressive, as if he’s back in his miserable berth on the _Ellsworth_. As though these weeks of earning trust and being helpful and taking halting, uncertain steps back towards a feeling like being alive never happened.

Perhaps he should have stayed behind. Surely drowning would have been a better alternative than having vitality dangled in front of him and yanked away just as quickly.

He isn’t surprised no one has come for him. Quentin muses on this, feeling the rock and roll of the sea under him. Why should they? He isn’t worth the trouble of rushing. After all, like always, Quentin has failed. He has proven himself useless, just like he did in school, and to his father and—and to _Alice_. And as soon as he can be bothered Eliot—no, not _Eliot_ , he never really was “Eliot”, was he—

—the _High King_ is going to kill him.

Surely drowning would have been a better alternative.

 _Surely_ drowning would be…

That thought—that insidious, lulling thought—of all things is what moves Quentin from the floor. He realizes distantly that his neck aches. It’s been hours, and he had barely moved. Still, it hardly matters now. Quentin steadies himself against the door. He pulls off his boots, because that seems like a responsible thing to do. They might be useful to someone else.

He wastes several minutes and a few valuable sheets of parchment trying to write some kind of note, but what is there to say? _Dear Captain, apologies for preempting my own execution,_ or _Dear Eliot, I had to do this, so that the memory of your blade at my throat would always remain a pleasant one,_ or, Quentin thinks in a moment of guilt, _Dear Todd, thank you for always being kind to me, even if it was just following orders._

Quentin leaves his futile efforts crumpled on the floor of his surgery and steps outside in his shirtsleeves. The wind drags its fingers through his hair, and the coolness of the night raises goose flesh on his arms. The water will be cold, he realizes, and it’s almost enough to make him turn back. But this is for the best, he reasons.  

Quentin might stray a little too close to the deck lanterns in search of the proper strip of the ship side to throw himself off of. He should have given this more consideration in advance, really, considering how inevitable his failure was. He usually had a place all picked out but he’d been distracted from such thoughts as of late, distracted by mock duels, and dice games, and the glint of silver rings. Finally he finds a good spot, with a thick bit of rigging to hoist himself up onto the balustrade with. He hears a shout, from somewhere far behind him, but he ignores it. They’ll never reach him in time.

Then he’s balanced on the ship’s edge, six inches of wood under his feet and a bit of taut rope in his hand the only thing standing between him and the vast, empty sea. In the dark, with the lights of the _Whitespire_ at his back, it feels as through Quentin is standing at the edge of the world, and below him, only the abyss.

He wonders if he’ll have time to drown before some fearsome creature of the deep makes him its dinner. _What’s worse_ , he pauses to consider, _The jaws of a shark or the sword of a pirate king?_

His moment of hesitation nearly costs him his choice, as even with the rushing wind he hears the approach of footsteps. Footsteps whose graceful cadence Quentin has come to memorize, whether on deck or through the wall of his cabin.

 _Now,_ Quentin urges himself, despite his white knuckled grip on the rigging anchor, _Before he draws his blade. Do it now, and keep his smile._

But he can’t. He’s frozen on the precipice, as always. He half hopes the ship will buck beneath him, that the _Whitespire_ itself will cast him out, but the waters are calm and Quentin, despite all odds, has developed an able pair of sea legs.

The soft steps pause beside him, and Quentin squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t look and see the gaze of the High King finally gone cold and empty.

“Penny for your thoughts, Q.”

The diminutive rolls so easily off the High King’s tongue. As though Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh are friends. As though there could have been something fragile and new blossoming between them. As though Quentin hasn’t spent every moment onboard the _Whitespire_ with a blade pressed to his back.

“I thought I might save you the trouble of killing me.”

Quentin shuffles his feet. Tries to will his grasp on the rope to loosen.

“Oh, is that what I’m doing?”

“I’m assuming as much, since I let one of your men die today.”

“You know,” comes the reply, “You seem to be making a lot of decisions on my behalf, considering who’s captain of this ship.”

Quentin is confused enough to open his eyes. Eliot leans against the balustrade beside him where Quentin is balancing between life and a watery grave. He is dressed simply, perhaps even for bed in a simple linen shirt and trousers. Barefoot, he still drapes himself against the ship’s side, elegant as always. His eyes are not empty, as Quentin feared. Instead they are fixed on him, warm in the flickering light of the deck lanterns.

“I thought we made a bargain,” Quentin still says, feeling a bit petulant.

“And it still stands.” Eliot stares up at him, brow furrowed. “Do you _want_ me to kill you?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Well, too bad, because it isn’t up to you. Get down, please.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I ordered you to do so,” Eliot says with an edge of command, “...and because you want to live, Quentin. Let’s both admit it and save me having to send men overboard to fetch you when you realize it too late.”

“You would send men for me?” Quentin asks, hating the waver in his voice, “Even if I jumped?”

“Yes.” Eliot’s answer is immediate, and Quentin realizes perhaps Eliot’s aloof tone is a bit of a facade. “Especially if you jumped. _Christ_ , Q, please come down from there.”

Quentin exhales. He stares, half-longing, for one moment more at the dark, hypnotic waves.

Then he obeys his captain. Self-loathing swirls in his gut as he awkwardly lowers himself down from the balustrade, clinging in fear when a wave nearly unbalances him. His feet touch the deck with a disgusting rush of relief.

“You don’t know what I do and don’t want,” he grumbles at Eliot, all performance of respect forgotten with _coward coward coward_ ringing through his head.

“Apparently I do,” Eliot scolds, touching him lightly on his chest, his shoulders, the back of his head, as though checking him for injuries, “Honestly, you nearly gave my night watchman a heart attack. I should throw you back to the fish for his gray hairs and mine.”

There is a light tremor in Eliot’s fingertips as Quentin brushes them away.

“I still don’t understand why you haven’t.”

Eliot sighs. Looks... _hurt_ , almost. Pitying, certainly. It leaves Quentin feeling irritated.

“A man was born cursed,” Eliot says, “This is not your doing. You tried to save him, and gave him a few extra moments to pass on a trinket for his kin. We should all hope for such an opportunity when the end comes.”

“I’m meant to be helpful,” Quentin snaps, “What help am I if I can’t keep a man alive?”

“You helped Shaughnessy,” Eliot replies, “Who would’ve died without a doctor to see to that gunshot. And Shiraz’s separated shoulder, and Andrews and Gardener, who aren’t bedridden half the time from the damned sun—”  

“It’s not _enough_ ,” Quentin half shouts, then lowering his voice at the warning in Eliot’s gaze, “...it will never be enough.”

Eliot steps back. Studying Quentin he leans against the balustrade, then turns his eyes back to the sea.

“...Whatever this is about, it isn’t Thomas, god rest him, and it is officially threatening to affect the well-being of my crew,” he says, “So tell me, Quentin: What brought you to us?”

Quentin rests his hands on the wood keeping him from tipping into the sea.

“...my fiancée died.”

“This I know,” Eliot replies, “And you’ve grieved for two years.”

“It isn’t grief,” Quentin admits, “It was at first, but I was— _am,_ I mean my mind—“

Quentin struggles, still, after two years, to articulate the black well of _nothing_ that still had the power to swamp him without a moment’s notice.

“I was on that ship you took me from because it was either the sea or the sanitarium,” he manages, “After Alice...the acceptable time for mourning had passed and I wasn’t improving. My father thought that if I didn’t have something to occupy my mind that I might try to harm myself.”   

“Would you have?”

“I’m not sure,” Quentin says, then amends, “Though, I suppose I did go and join a pirate’s crew, so I clearly have some kind of death wish.”

“On the contrary, joining my crew proved that you have a will to live. It was an act of straightforward self-preservation.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“All men deserve to look after their own skin. Why are you the exception?”

“Because I killed her,” Quentin confessed, “I killed Alice.”

Eliot frowns, confusion marring his handsome features.

“By your own hand?”

“By the absence of it.”

Quentin can hardly speak past the shame, but Eliot has a right to know the failure that he’s brought on board his ship and called “doctor”.

“I wasn’t ready,” he says, “I wasn’t ready to be my father’s son. Even though I was happy, even though I wanted that life—wanted _Alice—_ I could feel the numbness creeping in and it terrified me. I thought that love had fixed me, but of course I was wrong.”

“I just needed a few weeks, I promised everyone, to clear my head,” Quentin continues, “Alice wanted to come with me. She said we were meant to be partners, that we should work through our stumbles together, but I insisted she stay behind. Ordered it, in fact, which I doubt she ever forgave me for.”

“Wives and sweethearts rarely care for that,” Eliot agrees.

“Right. Well, I never really got my little sojourn, because a week later the letter found me.”  

“There was an accident,” Eliot guesses. Quentin shakes his head.

“It was a fever. She succumbed only a few days after my departure. It was perfectly treatable.”

“Ah,” Eliot says, “And had you been at her side the symptoms would never have escaped your keen eye.”

“She was flushed when we last spoke, but I thought nothing of it,” Quentin says, ignoring the hint of mockery in Eliot’s tone, “The morning I left she refused to see me. I thought she was just angry, but already she was…”

Quentin wishes he hadn’t stepped down from the ledge when he imagines Alice, alone and sickening steadily, left to languish because their passions had been high and _surely_ she just needed some time alone to _deal with her emotions_.  

“If I had stayed,” he mutters, “If I had stopped to think on anything besides _myself_ for one god cursed hour, I would have noticed. I would have—Jesus—I would have had the right serum to lower her temperature. Keep the joints from swelling. Do you know rue can keep away epileptic fits, even the ones that stem from fever?”

“I didn’t.”

“Neither did her family. By the time they realized something was truly amiss and summoned another physician it was too late.”

Quentin shakes his head.

“Alice was so strong,” he concludes, “She would have lived if I had been there to give her the support she needed, as she had asked to do for me. If I had trusted her as my partner instead of running away.”

Quentin rubs his eyes, dry as they are. After two years he’s cried all he could for Alice, and is left with just the ache of wishing he could still feel anything for the memory of the woman he thought he would marry.  

Eliot, having heard all this, hums.

“Fine then,” he says, “It was your fault.”  

Quentin drops his hands, shocked.

“I...what?”

Eliot shrugs.

“I have the blood of dozens of men on my hands,” he says, looking over the aforementioned appendages coolly, “Why should I lie and say yours are clean when it isn’t what you want to hear?”  

Quentin doesn’t know how to respond. He’d been given so many worthless platitudes in the months after Alice’s death that all the _it wasn’t your faults_ and _there’s nothing you could have dones_ eventually settled into a buzz of white noise that nearly sent him to the asylum.

“You might have saved her. You acted selfishly, and you weren’t there to do it.” Eliot arranges his elegant fingers into a gesture of benediction. “You have sinned against God, Quentin Coldwater. Shall I absolve you?”

Finding his voice, Quentin scoffs. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Exactly,” Eliot agrees, “You’re a surgeon. There comes a point when you have to accept that not every death you fail to prevent is an act of divine justice cooked up by God himself to remind you of the woman you think you killed.”

Quentin laughs, bitter. “Well,” he says, in possibly the clearest way he’s ever been permitted in his life, “I can’t.”  

“You can’t hear reason?”

“I _can’t_ stop—” Quentin gestures at his own head. “— _This._ It’s not—not about _reason_ or logic—”

God on high, how did one explain a weakness of their soul to a king?

“I’m like Thomas, I suppose. Except it’s my own mind that’s poison to me. And I—I can find a purpose, or a passion, or a _lover_ , even, and ward it off, but I’ll never cure it. It will always, _always_ be waiting.”

Quentin stares out at the dark empty sea, as if he were staring at a mirror. Exhaustion weighing his limbs he sits, turning to put his back against the railing.  

“If that makes me _useless_ to you,” he says, tracing a knot in the board under his knees, “Then go ahead and kill me.”

“...No. I don’t think I will.”

When Quentin looks up, Eliot isn’t looking out to the black waters. Instead he looks up at the stars. After a minute he sighs.

“I get the feeling that you may have been given a mistaken impression of me,” he muses, pulling a silver flask from somewhere and taking a swig, “So tell me, Quentin, what I can do to prove I’m not about to feed you to the sharks every time you have a black thought, or one of my crew drops dead by an act of God.”  

“Besides let me go?”

“Do you _want_ to be let go?”  

Quentin thinks, resting his head against the sturdy wood at his back. He doesn’t have an answer for his captain, so he changes tacks and instead asks:   

“Tell me what happened to your last doctor.”

Eliot tuts.

“Alright, well, poor example. I killed him.”

“Oh.” Quentin’s stomach drops all over again. “On what charge?”

“On the charge of I decided he should be dead instead of alive.”

Quentin is taken aback by the venom in Eliot’s reply. Eliot stares out at the sea for another long moment, then sinks down to join Quentin on the floor of the deck, folding his long legs up into a graceful sprawl against the balustrade. He fiddles with his flask, tracing over the chased engravings with the pad of his thumb.

“We had a cabin boy, for a while,” he says at last, “He’s since moved on to another ship with my blessing. Anyway, one day the boy takes a tumble from the shrouds. It happens from time to time. Young men get careless and the sea gives them a toss to remind them of their mortality.”   

A wave sloshes against the hull of the ship beneath them, as if to agree with Eliot’s words.

“He got off lucky. Just a broken wrist,” he continues, “Didn’t even break skin. So I send him down to Dr. Plover for a splint, and maybe a sip of whiskey for the pain. And Plover knows his trade, but we’re all very fond of our youngest crewman, and so I decide to check in, see that our doctor is looking after him alright.”  

As he tells his story Quentin watches Eliot’s eyes go cold. Merciless. Quentin can’t contain a shiver at the change, a mortal man become a king. A wrathful god.

“Plover gave him a splint,” he says, a cool rage simmering beneath his words, “He’d also put him high out of his mind on laudanum and had him half undressed in his cabin. A _fourteen_ year-old boy.”  

“Christ.” A black sickness twists in Quentin’s gut. “Did he—”

“Five minutes more and I would have been too late.”

“And so you killed him.”  Quentin is feeling none of the unease that Eliot’s confession had instilled in him only minutes ago. Eliot looks at him, remorse entirely absent from his expression.

“I cut his throat,” he says, gaze steady, “The evidence was damning, and my word is law. His blood soaked the main deck while my men watched.”

Breaking his stare, Eliot takes a draught from his flask. His shoulders drop, and the tension bleeds from his frame until he sits beside Quentin a man once more, a bitter smile playing at his lips.  

“ _That_ was the cleanest life I’ve ever taken.”  

“Harm the king’s man, face the king’s justice,” Quentin murmurs, recalling young Shaughnessy’s words from one of his first hours onboard the _Whitespire._ The phrasing that had terrified him then carried a different weight now.

“Indeed,” Eliot agrees, “What do you say to that, doctor?”  

“I say Plover died too quickly.”

Eliot toasts him with the flask.

“Cheers.”

Quentin considers Eliot’s tale in the dim light. He looks at his own hands; thinks for the first time since he came here about the power he holds over men’s bodies. The power to harm or help that no cutlass can defend against, only the word of their king.  

“Is that why the men feared me, when I first came?” Quentin asks after a moment. Eliot nods.

“But not now,” he says, “It’s plain you’re nothing like Plover. He thrived on being essential. Loved turning plain medicine into a dark mystery, before we ever learned of the kind of beast he really was.”

Quentin wraps his arms around his knees, thinking on Eliot’s unsettling description.

“The men joke about magic and potions,” Eliot continues, “But they aren’t afraid of you anymore, superstitious as they are. They take what you give them, because you bother to explain the what and more importantly the _why_ of it all. You share the knowledge you have instead of hoarding it, and they can see the results for themselves, so they have come to trust you.”

“Oh.”

“Mhmm,” Eliot hums, then says, “You’re doing well here, in case no one has told you that.”  

Eliot nudges Quentin’s shoulder with his own, offering him a sly grin.

“You’re more than just a pretty face.”

Quentin looks away, cheeks warm.  

“I’m sure,” he says, embarrassed but strangely pleased, “...but thank you.”  

“No thanks necessary, Q.”

When Quentin manages to meet Eliot’s eye again, his gaze is warm. Steady. The way Eliot looks at Todd or young Shaughnessy or Matthews when he’s not being an ass, or even a very mild version of how he looks at Margo.

For a moment, Quentin feels...part of something.

A complex emotion wells up in response to that but Quentin sets it aside, casting about for a new topic of conversation as Eliot sits contentedly beside him under the stars. Eventually his gaze settles on the worn in red linen of Eliot’s shirt. On his throat, bare of its usual assortment of pendants except for a simple gold ring on a leather cord.

“I think this is the most informal I’ve seen you dressed,” Quentin says, adding belatedly, “—captain.”

Eliot shrugs.

“It’s a warm night, and the velvet can get a bit stuffy,” he says, “Besides, this is my preferred garb when trying to convince a man to step down off a ledge.”

A slightly hysterical giggle bubbles up from Quentin’s throat.

“And what,” he asks, pushing his hair out of his face with slack fingers, “Would you be wearing if you’d come to throw me overboard?”

“Oh, I have an outfit all planned out for that. Should you actually earn my death sentence, your final sight on this earth will be navy brocade picked out with gold peacock feathers.”

Quentin laughs, shaky with a long night and a longer day finally behind him.

“It sounds very elegant,” he admits.

“Trust me it is.”

Quentin looks up to the sight of Eliot offering him his open flask.

“I have a feeling you could use a sip,.”

“I—” After only a moment’s hesitation Quentin accepts the olive branch, their fingers brushing as he takes the flask from Eliot’s grip, “—honestly I could. Thank you.”

The brandy burns on its way down, but Quentin manages to swallow past the urge to cough. Mostly.   

Eliot laughs, though it isn’t cruel. “You don’t drink much, do you Q?”

“I drink enough,” Quentin replies, taking another more careful sip, “I typically take my libations in a glass.”  

“Ah, you simply are not accustomed to my speed of barbarism,” Eliot says with a wink.

“Just so.” Quentin takes one last sip before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He doesn’t miss how Eliot’s eyes follows the motion. With Eliot’s gaze so intent Quentin can’t help but glance down to his mouth as well. His lips look soft, and his jaw is firm and for a moment Quentin wonders...

He wonders.

What would it be like, to touch Eliot Waugh with intention? To be touched in return?

“...well, it’s late.”

Quentin narrowly avoids startling as Eliot breaks the moment, “And I’ll be saying a few words for Tom at first bells. We should both—”

“Right, of course.” Quentin returns Eliot’s flask, their hands brushing again in the exchange. This time it makes Quentin blush, and he’s grateful that in only the starlight Eliot can’t see. He clambers awkwardly to his feet, clasping Eliot’s forearm when he offers to help pull him up from the deck. Quentin looks up to meet his gaze when he stands steady but Eliot doesn’t release his grip.

“Should this happen again,” Eliot says, his eyes uncertain but a determined set to his mouth, “I hope I will find you at my door before I find you back on that ledge.”

Quentin swallows. Nods. Shifts on his feet, which have turned to pins and needles after sitting on the hard deck.

“I’ll do my best,” he promises.

“That’s all I can ask of any man,” Eliot replies. He gives Quentin’s wrist a squeeze, and then lets him go.

“Eliot.” Quentin keeps his voice low, realizing they are not in private and the crew could be listening in. Eliot raises one eyebrow, but allows the familiarity to pass.  

“Thank you.”

Quentin isn’t certain, but he thinks perhaps Eliot is taking advantage of the starlight to hide a blush of his own.

“Don’t think on it, Q,” he replies, trotting out that damned diminutive again like it’s some kind of endearment, “Now rest, please. Tomorrow is another day and you’ve still got seventy-four souls to look after.”  

“Aye, captain.”

Eliot has business to attend to with his men before he can rest, so Quentin returns to the stern alone. When he steps into his quarters he no longer faces a prison cell, but a simple room awash in moonlight. With relief and a sense of bone-deep exhaustion he dresses for bed and slips between his plain cotton sheets. The sea rocks the _Whitespire_ gently beneath him as Quentin breathes, taking stock of himself.     

Eliot’s words, while appreciated, haven’t fixed him. He still feels grief, his inadequacy, his _failure_.

He also feels confusion, uncertainty, warmth and welcome and perhaps the forbidden twist of attraction.

But above all this, Quentin realizes, he _feels_. He is not a prisoner to the slow, slogging numbness that tried to drag him to a watery grave. There are passions, good and bad, prodding sharply against his ribs. For that reason alone he’s glad to be alive to feel them.

And that is certainly something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: we meet one of the High King's many vassal ships, and take on a bloody battle at sea!
> 
> Thank you all for your comments! Every one makes my day and inspires me to write faster!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act 1: Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, let me say I am SO SORRY for the delay in posting. I've had a crazy summer and I'm getting ready for a cross country move. I'm still very much in love with this AU, and I'm so grateful for the comments and questions! In addition, I've also been collaborating with another great author on another historical AU. If you like Romanticism and tenderness, please check out "Our Sublime Refrain"! 
> 
> Anyways, this isn't the Act 1 finale I had planned, but this chapter seemed to want to be on its own, and I wanted to reassure you all that I'm still here lol. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for more!!

Despite a lack of medical emergencies, Quentin finds his time well occupied in the weeks after his little jaunt up onto the railing of the  _ Whitespire _ . 

_ Suspiciously _ well occupied. 

It takes him time, always, to recover his spirits after an episode, and that time is usually accompanied by restless nights and poor dreams. Quentin finds himself tired and listless during the day, and tries to keep to himself for a while. But then it’s Tuesday, and he can’t possibly miss his regular dice game with the men, can he? This at least, is what Shaughnessy insists, and Quentin doesn’t feel much like playing, but he can’t bring himself to disappoint the young crewman. It’s suggested, as they pass the cup and their coins around the table, that Quentin might also join them for cards on Thursdays, and that’s another evening he spends around other people instead of on his own. Todd knocks on his door bright and early one morning because they’ve found some books in the hold from an old plunder and would Quentin be interested in taking a look to see if they had any value? The next day Joshua needs his help tasting new recipes in the galley, and the day after that Phillips and Baudry drag him up into the rigging to get a close up look at their carving details on the new foremast, and Andrews wants to know if Quentin has ever fired a cannon? Which is how he ends up playing powder monkey for a few days of gunnery drills under Margo’s supervision, which amuses the Blood Queen to no end. 

This goes on and on. Quentin is no longer having trouble sleeping, at least, as he falls into his bed dead tired at the end of every day with barely a thought to remove his boots. And he’s up every morning with some sailor or other needing his urgent help for a task, or his scholarly eye for an unknown treasure. Through it all he’s surrounded by the seventy four souls he’s responsible for keeping alive, save from random acts of god, in all their boisterous, noisy, gruff charm.  

“Eliot,” he finally says, stopping into the captain’s stateroom on his way back from a knot tying lesson with  _ Matthews _ of all people, “Call off your men.” 

Eliot, sat at his desk, looks up from the letter in his hands. He’s wearing a cream colored tunic that wraps around his trim waist and, of course, leaves most of his chest on display alongside his varied collection of necklaces. The tunic falls to a hem like a handkerchief, edged in gold and green over brown leather trousers. The afternoon light streams through his cabin windows and Quentin does his best to focus on his grievance and not the way Eliot glows under its warmth.   

“Good afternoon to you too, Quentin,” he says, bemused, “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“I think you do, and it was endearing at first, but I can’t get a moment’s peace,” Quentin declares, “It’s been nearly a month. I’m not planning to leap from the crow’s nest the moment I get a damned half hour to myself! I swear, day and night I’ve got Todd and Shaughnessy dragging me off to some activity or other, like I’m...”

Quentin’s words peter off when he realizes Eliot is smiling at him. It’s a soft thing, curling the corners of his lips and brightening his eyes. 

“What?” Quentin demands, trying to keep the smile out of his own voice.   

“I’m just glad to see you in a more robust state of mind,” Eliot replies, setting aside his papers, “And I didn’t ask the men to do anything.” 

“Really,” he asks, skeptical. 

“Q,” Eliot says, folding his hands under his chin and raising his eyebrows, “I think you may need to come to terms with the fact that the crew have simply grown fond of you.”

“I...really?” Quentin feels like a fool repeating himself, but the possibility of Eliot’s words seem ludicrous. The High King shrugs. 

“You aren’t on a suicide watch of my making,” Eliot promises, “You have my word.” 

“I—well. Alright.” Quentin crosses his arms over his chest. Eliot watches him, clearly amused as he shifts awkwardly. “Sorry to have disturbed you then, captain.”  

“Your presence in my quarters is hardly a disturbance, doctor. In fact, I wondered if I might—"

At that moment a slim hand claps down on Quentin’s shoulder, and he jumps to find the Queen right behind him. He’s been so immersed in his conversation he hadn’t noticed her approach. 

“There you are, Coldwater,” Margo says, “I need a scribe, if you’re not engaged more urgently.” 

“Um, no, I don’t think so,” Quentin says, looking to Eliot, “Unless, captain, you needed—“ 

Eliot waves his hand, picking up his letter once more. 

“No, no, it was merely a trifle,” he says, “Help Margo, we need that inventory over and done with before we can look to our next prize.”

“Alright then,” Quentin offers Margo a short bow, “I’m yours, my lady.”

Margo rolls her eyes and cuffs Quentin on the back of the head. 

“Cheek. Get yourself a good quill and meet me in the hold.”

And so Quentin spends his afternoon playing notary, helping Margo inventory a take from yesterday afternoon. It was a light prize, but a light battle to take it. They’d hardly hooked the ship to board it when the captain had surrendered. 

Piracy, Quentin has come to learn, is not so bloody an occupation as the novels would make it seem. It’s a matter of intimidation and theatrics, convincing the ships they plunder that surrender is less costly than the fight to keep their cargo. Eliot and Margo had spent years cultivating the reputation of the High King and the Blood Queen so that the very sight of the  _ Whitespire  _ was enough to have smart captains laying down their swords. For the less wise captains, well. The stories of the dread High King must come from somewhere. 

This prize, for which no blood was spilt except for one nasty splinter earned lifting a trunk over the gangplank, is mostly clothes, of all things. According to the ship’s manifest some great lord had seen fit to ship a wardrobe for his household to their summer estate. Now the crew of the  _ Whitespire _ would benefit from his good taste. 

They’ve sorted out several fine pairs of boots which will be distributed to those in need among the crew. Margo sets them aside while Quentin notes down their quantity in the ship’s manifest. Next are men’s trousers, then ladies petticoats—far too conservative for her taste, Margo declares, putting them aside for later sale—then a large selection of shirts and coats. 

“I...um.” 

“Something on your mind, Coldwater?” Margo asks. 

“Well, I’m certain Eliot—“ Quentin quails under Margo’s glare, “—excuse me, the captain was lamenting the loss of another silk shirt last week after he dueled that merchant. I just happen to see there—“ he points to a cream colored garment with an elegant lace trim at the cuffs “—it might make a good replacement.” 

“Hm…” Margo examines the shirt critically. “It may be too short in the sleeves, but it will do no harm to try. Good eye, doctor. Speaking of...”

Margo unearths another piece of clothing, a rather fashionable blue jacket with a low collar and silver buttons. It must have been for the lord’s grown son or younger brother as it was cut for a slighter man than most of the shirts they’d catalogued. 

“This looks about your size. And this color would do wonders for your complexion.”

“I—oh, well thank you,” Quentin says, looking up from his notations, “but my coat is still serviceable.” 

Margo frowns, always a dangerous expression.

“That dour old thing is getting ragged,” she declares, “Looking at it offends my royal gaze.” 

Quentin looks down at his own coat, the dependable old navy wool with its half mourning trim. He’s worn it since...well since just after Alice passed. He remembers having the tailor add the black velvet at the cuffs and his throat. It’s...comfortable. Familiar. Looking at the new jacket Margo offers him Quentin realizes in comparison that it is also very plain. Next to Margo and Eliot, and even most of the men on the crew, Quentin had grown accustomed to feeling a bit drab, but perhaps that was not simply his nature, as he had assumed. 

Reaching out, Quentin touches the soft blue coat that the queen offers. It’s a very light wool trimmed in cream, with a simple pattern picked out in silver thread. It’s bright, like the sky. Like the sea. It isn’t a coat appropriate for one in mourning. 

From the pointed look the Margo is giving him she is fully aware of that fact. 

With only some reluctance Quentin accepts the jacket from Margo’s hands. 

“I...perhaps. Thank you, Margo—um, my queen.”

“Yes, well, you’re at sea, not the seminary,” she says, brusque as always, “You could at least try not looking so horrifically Puritan. Now help me with these parasols. They’ll be worth good money in the next port.” 

Quentin sets the garment aside for the moment and returns to the task at hand. He doesn’t allow himself to dwell too deeply on the topic until that evening in his cabin. Quentin lays out his old coat on his bunk, considering the faded dark wool which clothed him for all of his grief and the doldrums that followed. 

It  _ has _ gone threadbare, not to mention unseasonably warm for the summer winds. Yet to let it go stirs a mild kind of fear in Quentin’s belly, as though he were a boy again bound for his first stay at school.

Fingering the black trim for a moment, Quentin comes to a decision. It’s merely a bit of work with his scalpel to save a spare scrap of the black velvet, and then the old coat is bound for the rag bin. 

Quentin lays out the new jacket Margo gifted him, setting the length of black trim over one of the shoulder seams. It sits well with the brighter color, but as a reminder, not a straight jacket.

“Let’s compromise, hm, Alice?”

Feeling lighter than he has in years, Quentin goes looking for his suture kit. 

The next morning, Quentin tolerates the good natured hoots of the men when he appears on deck out of mourning, but it’s the High King who makes him blush.

“Mr. Coldwater.” 

Quentin is just finished wrapping a poultice around Avery’s swollen ankle—the man simply cannot seem to keep on his feet—when he looks up to find Eliot staring. His gaze skips over the touch of black on Quentin’s shoulder and pauses, noticeably, low on his throat where Quentin had decided to forego his cravat.

“You’re looking…” Eliot eyes are bright. Surprised. Pleased. “You have a new coat, I mean. It suits you well.” 

Quentin cheeks are warm. He shoos off Avery with instructions to stay on his crutches for another week, then stands, brushing dust off his trouser knees. 

“Thank you—um—captain,” Quentin replies, fiddling with his new collar nervously, “The queen thought it time for a change...and after some thought I found myself in agreement.”

“Yes, well. Margo is very wise in these matters.” 

Eliot sets his hand on Quentin’s shoulder like it belongs there. It’s just a friendly touch, a pat, really, but Eliot brushes his thumb over the strip of black against the deep sky blue and Quentin sees understanding in his gaze. 

“I’m glad for you, Q.” 

Quentin swallows, leaning into the warmth of Eliot’s palm, just for a moment. He notices Eliot is wearing his new shirt, with the lace trim. The delicate froth at his wrists is terribly becoming. He wonders if Eliot knew that Quentin had chosen it for him. That Quentin was thinking of the elegant twist of his hands when he spotted it. 

He wonders if Eliot would like to know that Quentin brought himself to pleasure in the darkness of his quarters again last night imagining Eliot in that shirt, with his hands all over Quentin’s hungry skin. 

Quentin is no longer in mourning. He has set Alice free, and shed his black coat, and Eliot is  _ glad _ for him. Quentin thinks, now that he allows himself the thought, that Eliot could be many things for him. He is  _ allowed  _ to want those things.

Is he brave enough to ask for them?

“ _ Sails!” _

Eliot’s gaze snaps up to the horizon, and his grip on Quentin’s shoulder goes tight. 

“Forgive me, doctor,” he says, releasing him, “Duty calls.”  

Quentin follows Eliot to the starboard bow, where Todd is waiting with the glass. He hangs back, waiting for the captain to give orders for battle stations, whether to take a prize or defend the ship. 

“She’s a graceful little brigantine,” Eliot declares, staring down the ship with his eye to the glass, “Six guns, perhaps. No sight on her colors yet—Ah. Here we go.”   

There’s a held breath about the deck as the men wait for their king’s declaration. Without an aid Quentin can just see the square of black unfurl from her mainmast, with a device in white he can’t quite make out. Barely visible beneath the flag he swears he could spot a streak of violet. 

“My, my.” Eliot collapses the glass. “It looks like one of our vassals has come to call.” 

“My king?” 

  
“Stand the men down, Todd,” Eliot commands, “And prepare to welcome some guests. The captains of  _ Our Lady Underground _ seek an audience.”


End file.
